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I I1L VVLUV/VITIL. ULIIII-V 


No. 53 

Published Monthly JANUARY, 1900 $5'°° P er Annu 


bass ii 

r 'w w' w w HT 'M - ' ’M" 1C. ’M' M - -'M M. M,. M- 

^nVn.TMM n n^V.'^TriViM'nn' M W u m SlTW mm m m § m n ng un^ 


The Shield of 

His Honoi 



COL. RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 

Author of 

“ My Official Wife,” “ An Exile From London” 


9 


NEW YORK 

THE HOHE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

3 EAST FOURTEENTH STREET 


fa— 


























































■M 













THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR 

% . 

A NOVEL 

BY S 

COL. RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE; 


AUTHOR OF 

‘•‘My Qfficial Wife,” “An Exile from 

London,” Etc., Etc. 

v 



“ Love’s wings are over fleet, 

And, like the panther’s feet, 

The feet of Love !•*’ 

Algernon Charles Swinburne. 



NEW YORK 

THE HOME PUBLISHING. COMP ANY. 

1 


Library of Congr«8% 
Qfflco of tb? 

»H 181900 

Register of Copyrlghtfe 



51994 


Qopy RIGHT, IQOO, BY. A. C, GUNTEJt, 


All rights reserved 


SEC 2ND COPY, 



THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR 


BOOK I 

Prince Charming 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Adrift on Life’s Ocean .... 5 

II. Aunt Tatia’s Diplomacy ... 23 

III. Among the Roses at Rovno . . . 4 1 

IV. In Golden Fetters .... 58 

V. The Bal de Noblesse — An Addition to the 

Staff 75 


BOOK II 

In the Panther’s Claws 


CHAPTER PAGE 

VI. The Old, Old Story . -94 

VI f. Another Fallen Star . . . • ”3 

VIII. A Diplomatic Quest . . .132 

IX. On an Alien Shore .... 15 2 

X. Expiation * 7 2 


4 


CONTENTS 


BOOK III 

The Wages of Sin 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XI. Alone in Dresden . . . . .192 

XII. His Golden Fortune — an American Queen 209 

XIII. An interrupted Honeymoon . . . 226 

XIV. “ Je m’ en vais! ” ..... 245 

XV. Paying the Price 262 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR 


BOOK I. 

Prince Charming. 


chapter i. 

ADRIFT ON LIFE’S OCEAN. 

Marie Kriloff turned wearily from the windows of 
her drawing-room as the great bell of the Kazan Ca- 
thedral boomed out through the darkness the hour of 
nine. “ He will be here soon,” she whispered. “ What 
can he have to tell me? ” Touching a silver bell, she 
turned to old Elia, the butler, standing there mutely 
before her : “ Light up the library, Elia,” the 

lonely girl slowly said; “and if Counselor Weinstock 
calls, show him in! Say that I will receive him.” 

“ Barina,” entreated the silver-haired servitor; “ the 
samovar is ready. It is already waiting half an hour.” 

The black-robed orphan only answered by a wave of 
her hand, though she could see the pleading face of 
Marie Alexandrowna peering over the old man’s 
shoulder. 

She turned again to the window! There was no 
light in the two great drawing-rooms whose vast soli- 
tude took up half the frontage of the old house, only a 
glimmering taper being suspended, in a silver lamp, 
before the gold and silver splendors of the icon in the 
corner. 

And so, the gay gallants dashing along the Italians- 
kaia toward the evening delights of the opera, the 
circus, and the salons of fashion, never saw that grace' 


6 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


ful figure lingering there, a somber-robed Queen of 
Night. 

Without, the March night was cold and keen; the 
far-distant silvery planets gleamed pale in the thin 
ether; the blue North star shone down pitilessly on 
the vast snow-covered Russian plains; the gloomy for- 
est, and the ice-bound Venice of the North. 

The winter night was as lonely without as in the 
other years of her girlhood when the silent watcher 
had looked down upon the tenantless Place Michel. 

Nothing visible now save a few squalid isvostchiks 
huddled around the corners of the square. There was 
the red glow of the wooden fires melting the flinty 
snow-drifts; the furred police hovered in sheltering 
doorways, and, at the corner, a squad of four silent 
Cossacks sat mounted, their lance heads gleaming 
cruelly in the pale, reflected light of the stars. 

If there was light and life in Petersburg on this 
wintry night, it was hidden behind doubled windows, 
cotton padded, and sol dly barred shutters, for the icy 
blasts of Lake Ladoga whistled down the Neva and 
chilled the poor wretches bundled in their sheepskins, 
the beggars who haunted the warm entrances of cafe 
and restaurant. 

The jingling sleighs dashed along, the burly coach- 
men’s beards matted with the ice from their breaths, 
and the sentinels on the square were changed every 
fifteen minutes before the huge pillar of Alexander the 
First. 

Suddenly, Marie Kriloff felt a rude, but loving em- 
brace as her nurse. Marie Alexandrowna, half dragged 
her into the lighted dining-hall. The orphan yielded, 
but she shuddered as she passed the center table where- 
on, upon a silken cushion, reposed the dozen of gleam- 
ing orders and decorations of the late Baron Deme- 
trius Kriloff, member of the Conseil d’Etat, Privy 
Councilor, etc. 

As the lonely woman crossed the silent hall, she 
saw two huge silver salvers on a stand, heaped with 
the visiting cards of half the dignitaries of the Russian 
world of statecraft, letters and art, as well as the inter- 
twined noblesse. 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


7 


The great clock ticking away, with a hollow sound, 
alone disturbed that artificial hush which follows in the 
well-regulated household, the taking away of the dead. 

With a passive resignation, the girl of nineteen took 
her place at the family table, where she now sat alone, 
surrounded by a row of vacant chairs. It was but a 
friendly, dumb show, the sipping of a tiny cup of tea 
— the crumbling of a piroski — for the buxom waiting- 
woman stood there watching fondly over her darling, 
with muttered prayers and fond exclamations of 
“ Golubtchik, my dove and heart — my little mother — 
our angel.” A lonely orphan in a desolate home! 

It was with a choking sob that Marie Kriloff started 
as the front door sonnette rang shrilly, startling the 
echoes of the house of mourning. 

Around the vacant table, the lonely woman seemed 
to see again the faces of the dear departed — the grace- 
ful careworn mother of her childish days, her gallant 
brother Serge, handsome in his first uniform of the 
Chevalier Garde ; the two little cherub sisters, Olga 
and Natalie, blossoms who had faded all .too early in 
this arctic Paris, and the well-remembered form of her 
dreamy, intellectual father — the man whose guardian 
angel she had been for the three years since leaving the 
Catherine Institute. 

Marie had not time to call the roll of the absent — the 
proud, patient mother, who, for twenty years, had 
labored to stem a tide of placid, shiftless extravagance, 
and had carried a heart, broken by her husband’s 
feebly directed projects., to the only rest she had ever 
known — the grave. 

Gallant Serge now lay far away buried under the 
sand dunes of Geok Tepe, where he led on Skobeleff’s 
mad chivalry; and the little sisters had been untimely 
swept away, while the slim Marie was yet in short 
frocks at the institute. 

But the last — her father — the gentle, vacuous, re- 
fined old dreamer — her only companion and friend — 
it was but a few days ago that he sat there in that 
very chair, confiding to his only child the latest of his 
brilliant but elusive schemes. 

With a sigh, Marie lived over the nine days of death 


8 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


in life, which had followed the pompous funeral, at 
which, deputations of every leading society and public 
body of note had honored the memory of that remark- 
able intellect, Demetrius Alexandrovitch, Baron Kri- 
loff. 

With a shrinking dignity, the orphan had declined 
the offered courtesies of a score of ladies of rank, ar- 
dent in their first sympathy to share her solitude until 
the arrival of Madame Xenie Karovitch, her only rela- 
tive, who was now hastening from Odessa to the side 
of her bereaved niece. 

“ Thank Heaven, Barina Xenie comes soon,” mut- 
tered the warm-hearted nurse emeritus, as Marie Kri- 
loff glided into the library. 

For old Elia, standing as erect as in his soldier days, 
had presented the card of the visitor. He had frowned 
as he read the words: “ Matthias Weinstock, Conseiller 
et Avocat, 16 Posadskaia, Petersbourksky Ostrov.” 

And both the wise Elia and the thrifty Marie Alex- 
androwna, in the last ten years, had learned to rue the 
continued visits of this bustling German-Hebrew law- 
yer. 

The sharp-eyed servants instinctively felt that the 
house of Kriloff was tottering to its downfall ! 

For years these jealous attendants had watched the 
man of affairs slipping in with his portfolio under his 
arm, and, late and early, the baron and the round- 
faced lawyer were plunged in consultation over 
“ papers — many papers.” 

Rude and uneducated, these two Russian peasants, 
both of them serf born, had still nourished the pride of 
the family which they had so long served, till it was 
their only cult. For, had not Elia toiled in the huge 
old mansion since the very days when the delicate 
Helene Souvaroff had brought it as her splendid 
dowry to the brilliant young noble, Demetrius Kriloff, 
one of the giant intellects of New Russia, then fore- 
most in the cultivation of all Apollo’s manifold graces 
in the barbaric minds of the unawakened moujik. 

The vast property faced the fashionable Place 
Michel, and forty families yielded up a revenue to the 
noble proprietors who lodged themselves in stately 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 9 

fashion in the belle etage. It was a princely heritage. 

While Counselor Weinstock, having divested him- 
self of his richly furred coats and silken wraps, await- 
ed the coming of the young noblewoman in the library, 
Elia betook his grumblings to the society of his secret- 
ly beloved Marie Alexandrowna over their evening re- 
past. 

The dining-room page had already taken to the 
library the usual silver tray of refreshments, a per- 
functory recognition of the counselor’s standing as a 
gentleman. 

Crooning away to the watchful nurse, Elia mut- 
tered: “ It’s, high time for the Barina Xenia to come! 
Here is that lamb of lambs, the Barina Marie, left all 
alone with that Jewish wolf. I know — I know,” the 
old pessimist mumbled. “The house will soon go; it 
will go where the Finland villa went; it will go like the 
Livonian timber forest, the finest on the Baltic. Where 
is the dear dead Barina’s property in Wilna, the great 
house in Moscow, and the horse-breeding farms, of 
Kharkov? Once there were piles of hundred-rouble 
notes in my master’s secretaire with the Empress 
Catharine’s picture on them ; now, there is not a single 
dollar in the house! ” 

He clutched the nurse’s hand: “ I have gathered up 
all the little things in the master’s room,” he cried, in a 
husky voice. “ I dared not give them to the Barina 
Marie. Only seventeen roubles, his medals and orders, 
his golden cuff-links, the old Breguet repeater, the 
Volga pearl studs that our dead mistress gave him, 
and the baptism cups of the children! All else is gone 
— gone! ” the old man sobbed, bitterly! 

The nurse sprang to his side. “ There was the dead 
Barina’s jewels,” she faltered, “ the Souvaroff dia- 
monds, the great pearl necklace, the rubies which 
General Souvaroff brought from Persia.” 

“ All gone,” groaned Elia. “ I was sent by the mas- 
ter with this Weinstock to take them, when the great 
coal-mine project failed. One-half to the bank — the 
other half to the Mont de Piete.” 

With streaming eyes, Marie Alexandrowna cried : 
“ Let us go away, you and I ! We have our three 




IO THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

thousand roubles ! We can buy a little farm. Let us 
get away! They will take all! ” 

“ We will see,” murmured her elderly suitor. 
“ When Barina Xenie comes I will tell her all ! She is 
the one clear head, and then we must know all soon ! 
For the bills,” he mournfully said, “ there is a little 
time, but they come in even now in clouds! The Barin 
never paid — these last two years — how could he? ” 

The two devoted retainers envied the tired sleep of 
the four or five under-servants, who had, by mere 
inertia and fear of being thrust out in a long, gloomy 
winter, remained at their posts, content with food and 
shelter as a wage. 

While the declining fortunes of the house of Kriloff 
were being canvassed in this kitchen cabal, Counselor 
Matthias Weinstock had finished his mumbled salu- 
tations and apologies as the stately young mistress of 
the great home entered the library. 

Weinstock eyed the beautiful patrician keenly as she 
took her father’s seat at the head of the long table in 
the library. His conscience smote him as he opened 
the portfolio, and, with a trembling hand, arranged his 
papers. His eyes gleamed unsteadily behind the gold- 
rimmed spectacles of his crafty trade. 

For the dignity, the touching helplessness of the 
girl stirred his heart. He had a numerous brood of his 
own over in the homely apartment beyond the Neva, 
where his alert life partner, Rachel, divided his sorrows 
and multiplied his joys. “ There is always marriage,” 
he thought, as the singular beauty of the girl flashed 
upon him for the first time, “ with the Souvaroff kin- 
dred, with the Baroness Xenie, she must soon marry 
well,” he mused, as he laid out his schedules and 
stamped papers. 

The lawyer vainly struggled for an auspicious open- 
ing, for, with a sudden sense of guilt, he remembered 
how, in the three years of her budding womanhood, 
the young Baroness had been excluded from the con- 
fidential business seances held here with the apostle of 
“ advanced Russia.” 

He looked ba'k over the ten years of his professional 
connection, and, with an inward terror, recalled the 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


1 1 


fact that the widower, Demetrius Kriloff, had a vast, 
though scattered and somewhat unproductive, estate, 
when the tired wife’s steadfast eyes bade adieu forever 
to her visionary, but high-minded and affectionate, 
husband. 

The revenue from the great fortress house on the 
Place Michel had always gone directly from the in- 
tendant into the hands of the Baroness Helene, and all 
the glittering projects of later years were only tried 
when the light had left those loving, clear eyes forever! 

The record of failures was a long one — an appalling 
one. There was the Siberian gold mine, the Azov 
fishery, the Crimean vineyard, the patent rotary steam 
engine, the steam wool-scouring enterprise, and the 
compressed turf fuel company ! 

In all these, Baron Demetrius Kriloff had been led 
on, “ an unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster 
followed fast and followed faster,” until a black cloud 
of ruin overhung the old mansion, and then, the sud- 
den death of Baron Demetrius came, accentuating the 
final crash ! 

It was the compressed turf company which had 
dealt the final blow, and, with a guilty heart, Matthias 
Weinstock desired now to acquaint the resolute Xenie 
Karovitch, by proxy, with the final fall of her broth- 
er’s fortunes. 

And, anxious to escape the falling Gates of Gaza, 
the adroit speculator now sought to introduce in pa- 
pers and figures the grim object lesson for the arriving 
noblewoman. “ It will at least spur her up to acting 
for this lovely girl ! ” was the lawyer’s only mental 
excuse. “ She must give the child a home, at least, 
until she marries ! Then, all will be right ! ” 

Though Matthias Weinstock was no squire of 
dames, he was astonished at the beauty of this silent 
young queen of night. 

He had intentionally avoided the daughter in the 
vigils of the last two winters with the unhappy father. 
And now, in recounting the long series of disastrous 
operations into which he had led the dead Baron, 
Weinstock blushed to remember the piteous exclama- 
tion of Demetrius Kriloff when the fifty thousand 


12 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


roubles’ worth of jewels left the old mansion: “ She 
must never know — they were her mother’s, and — her 
mother left them to her! ” 

“ You wished to see me upon some business, Coun- 
selor,” calmly said the young noblewoman. “ Proceed, 
I am at your service.” 

Weinstock’s lips were dry as he gazed around the 
well-remembered room. Besides the bookcases filled 
with all the treasures of European belles-lettres, and 
the classics beloved of the dead scholar, there were 
many plans, models, maps, projects, piles of cartons 
filled with technical papers, and these recalled the slow 
stages of the loss of a million roubles. 

Even though the wily lawyer had taken grist of 
every in and out, profiting by his client’s every disaster, 
he was now at a loss for words wherewith to deceive 
this simple gentlewoman. 

“ Your lamented father, the Baron Demetrius, hon- 
ored me with his confidence for many years,” said 
Weinstock, “ and, therefore, I have come to you, as I 
presume that you know little of his affairs.” 

There was an awkward pause. “ I know nothing 
whatever of my dear father’s private business,” faltered 
the girl, her eyes filling with tears as she saw before 
her his well-remembered writing implements, and all 
the disjecta membra of his work table. 

How many times she had stolen on tiptoe to the 
door, to watch him there, bending over his intermina- 
ble papers with the patient enthusiasm of a Russian 
bureaucrat. 

“ Have you made any plans, Excellence? ” shame- 
fully asked the lawyer, with his eyes bent down upon 
the papers which he was nervously fingering. 

Marie Kriloff’s pale face flushed slightly as she 
turned her frank eyes upon him. “ Nothing whatever, 
Monsieur,” she coldly remarked, in her pride of caste, 
remembering that Matthias Weinstock was simply a 
creature of the business world, a money-getting Ger- 
man-Jew, a man hovering “ in nubibus ” between the 
rank of gentleman and servant, a sort of necessary 
evil. “ I shall defer all to the wishes of my aunt, Ex- 
cellence Xenie Karovitch, who will arrive in a few 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


13 


days. Perhaps,” the girl said suddenly, feeling a 
vague distrust, “ you should defer these matters until 
Madame Karovitch arrives.” 

“ Unfortunately, Excellence,” replied the lawyer, in 
a hard, strained voice, “ there are many matters which 
I must lay before you alone. For some years the 
affairs of your honored father have been in an involved 
condition. There have been heavy losses, and serious 
troubles remain to be faced. I have all the papers 

here ” he stopped abruptly, as he saw the girl’s face 

change. 

In his eyes she had read the whole import of his 
bungled disclosure. “ You are here to tell me that my 
father’s fortune has been lost in his many specula- 
tions — these affairs of the past few years ? ” Her breast 
was heaving now in some vague new emotion, but her 
eyes were steadfastly fixed upon his crimsoned face. 

“ There is but little left; it has been ruinous, the vast 
amounts of interest paid! ” murmured Weinstock. “ I 
warned the Baron, but he would go on.” 

“ Pardon,” coldly said the beautiful orphan. “ You 
can explain all the details later to Madame Karovitch. 
I would rather not discuss my father.” 

The lawyer’s hands were busied with his papers, and 
he at last found words to continue: “ It is forced upon 
me — the sorrow of my life — but I must do my duty. 
As the adviser of the late Baron Kriloff, I have been 
served with the notification by the Imperial Bank, of 
the foreclosure of the mortgage upon this house. It 
will be sold one month after the advertisement. I have 
just received the papers, and the announcement is 
in the Gazette de Petersbourg.” 

The orphan stood before him, her hands crossed on 
her breast, her eyes gazing wildly upon him. “ Our 
house — to be sold; my mother’s home; the home where 
she was married; where all her children were born!” 
Marie Kriloff seemed rooted to the spot. 

“ Gone — all gone,” sadly echoed the Semitic specu- 
lator. “ And, I have here their demand for the posses- 
sion, which I am forced to deliver to you personally. 
Of course, Madame Karovitch may wish to have her 


14 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

own advocates look over all the papers. I will leave 
them with you.” 

“ Let me end this painful interview, Monsieur,” reso- 
lutely said the friendless, girl. “ I will accept nothing 
at your hands! You say that you were my father’s 
friend. I know that for three years he has been clos- 
eted with you in these unending pour parlers of your 
joint operations. You must explain to the Excellence 
Karovitch how our estates have vanished, bit by bit, 
and how the law, as you say, turns me out into the 
street! I will not accept your confidence nor hear 
your explanations.” 

She rang the bell and the meager form of Elia ap- 
peared at the door. 

“Stay, Excellence, for your own sake! Listen,” 
pleaded the lawyer: 

“ Under the law you have a right to remain in your 
own apartments for six months longer. The Imperial 
Bank is desirous of gaining a proper legal control of 
the whole property at the end of the month of adver- 
tisement. I have been intrusted with two thousand 
five hundred roubles to be paid to you on your sign- 
ing this agreement to vacate your apartment at the end 
of the legal month. Have you any money? This sum. 
at least, would provide for you for a year.” 

Marie Kriloff glanced contemptuously at the pile of 
crisp hundred-rouble notes and waved back the paper. 
“ Show monsieur to his sleigh, Elia,” she gravely said. 
“ You may send your papers to Madame Karovitch on 
her arrival or to her lawyer. You will not be received 
here again. Take this money away with you ! ” 

The humbled schemer, portfolio under his arm, 
scuttled away, casting back one terrified glance at the 
slender girl standing there, with her slender hands 
parting the heavy portieres of the vaulted library. 

The outer door closed with a clang as the heart- 
broken orphan dropped heavily into her father’s vacant 
chair. 

Elia, startled beyond measure, had sought for cour- 
age in Marie Alexandrowna’s counsel as his young 
mistress, in a sudden self-humiliation, repeated that 
brutal query: “ Have you any money? ” 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 15 

She gazed around the room in whose dusky corners 
she had so often chased the merry cherub sisters, now 
only sweet, haunting memories. 

She saw the great quartos, over whose wondrous 
pictures she had lingered so many happy hours, with 
the fair-haired Serge, now lying in a soldier’s grave 
under the Transcaspian sands. 

And memory brought back to her the days, when, 
hidden behind her graceful mother’s gown, she had 
pounced down upon her beloved father at his favorite 
books ! 

And, now, on this lonely night, she could see him 
again seated there, bending over his desk, under the 
golden glow of his two green-shaded student lamps! 
The delicate form, the thin, white hand nervously 
searching for his worn silver cigarette case, his kind, 
wavering, glassy, blue eyes, the bared temples, his 
silken, straggling beard, and the long hair falling upon 
his stooped shoulders. 

Gentle in speech, inexhaustible in patience, cour- 
teous and refined beyond all men ; a scholar, dreamer, 
poet, inventor, and social enthusiast. Demetrius Kri- 
loff had poured out the wine of his life into too many 
leaky vessels! He had only built a pyramid of ruin! 

“ My poor father! ” sobbed Marie, burying her head 
in her hands. She knew now that in seeking for the 
elevation of others, in toiling for the modernization of 
Russia, in pondering over a hundred recondite social 
schemes, he had been only the architect of his own 
ruin! It had not as yet occurred to her that she was 
soon to be left adrift on life’s ocean a gentle, helpless 
waif; a beautiful, unprotected woman, still with a 
child’s untroubled heart. 

The five years at the Catherine Institute had been 
the only real happiness of her life, for they had taken 
away the dear mother to some undiscovered bourne 
long before the shy girl was placed among the five 
hundred young patricians of the famous, school, only 
to be rescued from multitudinous assaults by brave, 
bright-eyed Sophie Naryshkin. 

And, in the three years since she had returned to the 


l6 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

dear old home on the Place Michel, she had been the 
faithful companion of her father’s loneliness. 

True, there was always a daily drive or a sleigh ride 
with the widowed Madame Anykoff, who was the 
locataire of the other half frontage of the belle etage; 
there was the music and singing lessons; there were 
walks in the Jardin Michel, and on the rare occasions 
of Xenie Karovitch’s summer visits, a trip to the 
islands, or an outing to Tsarskoe Zeloe, Gatschina, or 
Peterhoff. 

For some unexplained reason, Demetrius Kriloff 
never trusted his one ewe lamb far afield with the 
dashing Madame Karovitch, and but once in the pre- 
ceding winter, had Aunt Xenie triumphantly borne 
Marie away to the grand opera. 

With a sudden confusion, the motherless girl found 
that even in her white muslin toilette, the opera glasses 
of the cavaliers were turned en batterie, to their box. 
But the dreamy-hearted girl soon forgot herself in 
gazing at Xenie Karovitch in all her glory! 

And she had wandered in fairyland that night, borne 
out into another world by the witching melodies and 
the pictured glories of Lohengrin. 

And, wonder upon wonder, across the rows of glit- 
tering boxes, she saw her schoolmate, Sophie Narysh- 
kin, a dream of beauty — the victorious. Venus — now 
the bride of a great patrician, gleaming there in dia- 
monds and as fair as Worth can make the loveliest of 
Eve’s daughters. 

When that vivacious and independent social star, 
Madame Xenie Karovitch, had departed for a summer 
in the Crimea, Marie Kriloff had overheard a brief 
passage-at-arms between Demetrius Kriloff and his 
spirited sister. 

“ Child — child no more,” quoted the lady. “ She 
is now a sleeping beauty! Wait till Prince Charming 
appears, and you may remember my warning words.” 

But the season had passed with three summer 
months of isolation bv the lonely Finnish lakes, and 
then, Demetrius Kriloff had eagerly returned to his be- 
loved library, his mountains of papers, his Committees 
on Public Education, his plans for the Encouragement 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


17 


of Manufactures, his Commissions of Art, on Prison 
Reform, his unfinished History of Siberia, his sessions 
at the Conseil d’Etat, and his evening conferences with 
the bustling Weinstock. 

In sheer self-protection, the lonely girl had fled 
away from the tide of of projectors, men of advanced 
ideas, inventors and placeless nobles, which ebbed and 
flowed in and out of the great house on the Place 
Michel. 

The timid girl, blossoming out into a wonderful 
beauty, had gazed daily in her mirror, and never yet 
found herself fair; she was but dimly conscious of the 
gloating passion in the eyes of a jeweled general who 
had carried away her Aunt Xenie in state for the great 
races, and, living in her unbroken calm — surrounded 
by her books and music — dreaming her innocent 
dreams — she never saw the paleness creeping over the 
thinned face of her father. 

She little knew that every night, after she had sat 
before the samovar, in place of the vanished mother, 
that Demetrius Kriloff paced his lonely rooms in an 
agony of grief and self-accusation. 

The meshes of Weinstock’s net entrapped him now 
beyond hope of escape. When the artfully suggested 
schemer had failed one after another, and eaten up 
Marie’s unprotected dowry, while she was yet a school- 
girl in the splendid prison of the institute, then the 
first mortgage on the house of Helene Souvaroff’s 
child had been followed by others., quickly compound- 
ing the ruinous interest and the new principal and 
charges. 

Sinking under the burden of his secret sorrows, the 
weak victim of a gigantic series of swindles, died in 
silence and never knew that the skillful machinations 
of certain keen-eyed capitalists had set on Matthias 
Weinstock to lead his victim into the forced disposition 
of the superb property on the Place Michel for not 
more than a third of its value. 

The end had come suddenly, only old Elia was by 
his bedside when Demetrius Kriloff, with one expiring 
mental effort, saw the gulf of poverty yawning before 
the helpless girl whose fortune he had thrown away. 


l8 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

“ Marie, my poor darling,” he whispered, and then he 
died with that beloved name upon his pallid lips. 

It was the warm-hearted Madame Anykoff who had 
telegraphed to Odessa to Excellence Xenie Karovitch: 
“ Come at once, Demetrius is dead; I fear the worst; 
Marie needs you.” 

And yet, the defeated regenerator and philanthropist 
was two weeks in his grave before the wandering 
widowed beauty received the telegram, and was called 
away from a merry hunting party at Tiflis, where a 
Grand Duke was being royally entertained by that 
dashing soldier, General Baron Michel Wraxine. 

When Xenie Karovitch showed the dispatch to the 
man who was her bond slave, Wraxine growled his 
dissent. 

For was not Madame Karovitch his chief lure to 
obtain from the Grand Duke that promotion to the 
command of the corps at Rovno, to which he had so 
ardently aspired. 

“ I must go, Michel,” she whispered. “ This girl is 
as beautiful as a star! She can not be left alone -in 
Saint Petersburg. Trust to me! I shall meet the 
Grand Duke on his return, and you later at Rovno, 
when the forget-me-nots bloom around the old palace 
of the Lubomirskis.” 

An angry exclamation died away on Michel Wrax- 
ine’s lips, for he remembered suddenly the beautiful 
brown eyes of the budding Hebe whom he had seen 
but once in Demetrius Kriloff’s faded drawing-rooms. 

When Michel Wraxine hoarsely whispered his 
adieu: “ Remember! You come to me at Rovno with 
the first roses,” as the departing beauty boarded her 
steamer at Batoum, she murmured : “ When did I ever 
fail you ? ” And so, to the artful beauty a new avenue 
of power opened, as she became the head of the fam- 
ily! 

It was midnight before Elia and Marie Alexan- 
drowna. now thoroughly alarmed, ventured to peer be- 
hind the velvety Persian curtains of the library. The 
faithful servants well knew the late hours of the high- 
class Russian, but their young mistress had never 
heard the midnight bells chime before. 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 19 

With pale faces, they rushed in, for there before 
them lav the lovely girl prone and helpless on the 
tufted carpet before the old visionary’s empty chair. 

“ It has killed her,” muttered the old butler. “ The 
poor, helpless lamb! She knows of the ruin at last! ” 

Though Elia could not read, the house dvornik, the 
smart French maid of Madame Anykoff, and Pierola, 
the fashionable hairdresser, had already spread over 
the great apartment mansion the news of the published 
foreclosure notice of the sale by the Imperial Bank! 

While the old man ran for a strong cordial, the ex- 
nurse flew away for the aid of the stout sewing woman, 
and when the Baroness Marie was safely borne to her 
room by the eager women, Elia pondered upon his 
own suddenly evolved responsibilities. 

While awaiting news of the restoration of the suffer- 
ing girl, the aged servitor sadly wandered over the vast 
apartment, with its barracklike rooms crowded with 
the haughty trophies of the Kriloff’s and the Souvar- 
off’s. The vast chambers were so large that a human 
voice sank away in unmeaning echoes. 

With each successive loss of an estate, the family 
pictures, plate, and icons, the swords and banners, all 
the treasured heirlooms, had been gathered into the 
last stronghold of the doomed race which still stemmed * 
the tide of misfortune. 

And even poor Demetrius Kriloff had superstitiously 
refrained from selling or pledging these touching ex- 
hibits of dead and buried “ human documents.” 

When he closed his weary eyes, a last pang, as he 
muttered “ My poor little girl,” was the knowledge 
that the one stain on his life was the wrongful disposi- 
tion of the historic Souvaroff jewels. 

It had been months before he learned the bitter truth 
from the smug Weinstock — the news that those heir- 
looms were all forfeited beyond all hope of return. 

And, yet, while the Souvaroff pearls shone (in pri- 
vate) on the snowy neck of Coralba, the reigning diva, 
the millionaire banker who gave them had prudently 
warned the swarthy Italian beauty to hide these splen- 
dors till she was well out of Russia. 

And, only the fact that the superb family loot 


20 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


in the rooms was known far and near, in high society, 
had kept Matthias Weinstock from one comprehensive 
swoop ! 

There were even now a few money-lending scoun- 
drels in the mines at Nertchinsk, in far-away, frozen 
Siberia, who had shorn their helpless sheep far too 
close. 

And so sadly did Elia gaze on the pictured Marshal 
Souvaroff, the great Ambassador Kriloff, the faces of 
beauty and soldier, statesman and palace dignitary, 
maid of honor and sweet-faced children, blossoming 
out in innocent beauty. 

The sacred icons of a dozen households, the golden 
swords and baptismal plate, all recalled vanished 
households where only the foot of the stranger echoed 
now! 

“ All this to go to the Jews — this heavenly child to 
be thrust into the street — never! ” swore the old man. 
“ May Saint Vladimir soon bring the Barina Xenie. 
She is a power! She is of the higher palace circle! 
They will not dare! ” 

When, with a frightened face, Marie Alexandrowna 
came back to tell of the young beauty’s helpless moan- 
ing; her bitter tears and the sobs which now told of 
her heart’s silent anguish, the old butler was roused to 
action. He had already found a cherished plan, but 
that demanded the consent and aid of the buxom 
object of his affections. 

“The Barina must have help!” he muttered, and 
then his mind fixed itself upon the loyal M dame 
Barbe Anykoff! “ She is one of our own people — 
Madame Xenie’s best friend! I will call her! ” 

For forty years Elia had followed the winter habits 
of the Russian aristocrats. Far up in the northern 
land, with only eieht hours of sickly day, the eight 
hours of night until four o’clock in the morning were 
given up to pleasure by the upper classes, whose slum- 
ber only ended at noon. 

And so it fell out that though one o'clock had al- 
ready sounded, Elia’s timid appeal found Madame 
Anykoff in full dress, laughing over her card-table 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


21 


with a princess, an ambassador, and a corps com- 
mander. 

The faithful butler could see, through the open door, 
that card-table piled with gold and notes; only a nar- 
row hallway separated all this heaped-up affluence from 
the darkened home where seventeen paper roubles rep- 
resented the last of two great fortunes. 

Under the great emerald necklace gleaming on 
Barbe Anykoff’s bosom, beat a warm and passionate 
Russian heart! 

She easily divined the crisis from the silent agony 
of the old man’s face. 

With a comprehensive smile of adieu, she called a 
reigning beauty away from a Czar’s aid-de-camp flirt- 
ing in the cozy corner of the far drawing-room. 

“ Anna Feodorowna,” she whispered, “ keep the 
bank for me. I leave you in charge! There is great 
trouble over there ! ” 

She nodded sadly toward the Krilofif entrance. 
When the alert-minded widow was in the hall, she 
whispered quickly, “ Tell me,, Elia, what is it? ” 

“ The Barina knows all now,” sobbed the old man. 
“ And, I think it has killed her ! ” 

With all the ardor of her generous nature, Barbe 
Anykofif muttered a comprehensive curse upon all 
Jews and money-leeches, and then sighed, ** Poor 
Demetrius!” crossing herself devoutly as she entered 
the ruined home. 

And the daylight found the unwearied devotee of 
fashion tenderly watching over the girl, whose trem- 
bling hand had closed gratefully upon the widow’s be- 
jeweled fingers. 

Then and there, Barbe Anykoff vowed to frankly un- 
fold to the coming Baroness Xenie all the mysterious 
gossip which had followed the wrecking of Demetrius 
Kriloffs fortunes. 

With a grim triumph, the widow answered the tele- 
gram of Baroness Xenie from Kharkov: “ I am in 
charge; hasten here; you are sorely needed.” 

Before a day was over, Madame Anykoff had drawn 
the whole story of the past from old Elia and the saga- 
cious Marie Alexandrowna. 


22 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


While her charming deputy from her own household 
cheered the silent sufferer, the good Samaritan roved 
over the whole great mansion, and piece by piece, gath- 
ered up fragmentary stories of the cunning fraud and 
wholesale overreaching. 

The vast house, sheltering fifty families, was a hu- 
man encyclopedia, and all the details of the fall of the 
houses of Kriloff and Souvaroff were soon forthcom- 
ing under the searchlight of Marie Kriloff’s new cham- 
pion. “Wait! Only wait!” murmured Madame 
Barbe. “ The wolf pack shall be driven off. For Xenie 
is brave, and she has the ear of the Grand Duke Ana- 
tole! ” 

The tenderness of Madame Anykoff, and the light- 
hearted chatter of the Countess Anna Feodorowna at 
last brought back the light to Marie Kriloff’s dimmed 
eyes. The orphaned girl had locked up her sorrows in 
her lovely bosom under the seal of silence, while the 
quick-witted widow sped down to Tosna to meet Baro- 
ness Xenie, now dashing homeward on the Moscow 
train. “ She shall be armed, at all points, before she 
arrives,” was Barbe’s effective precaution. 

Marie Kriloff had shed no tear over her ruin, save 
when Elia and the nurse stole into the orphan’s re- 
treat. 

Falling on their knees the faithful pair brought out 
their little hoard of the twenty-five years of patient 
drudgery. 

“ It is not much, Barina,” murmured the nurse, 
“ but it is all yours. We were your parents’ serfs born. 
We were to marry and live on our little farm, but all 
we have is yours. So, take it for love’s sake ! ” 

Then Marie Kriloff’s eyes were veiled into a sudden 
mist. She could not see the bundle of tattered notes 
and oft-fingered golden imperials; the heavy sack ol 
shining silver roubles. 

But she smiled on the faithful pair through her tears: 
“ I thank you, my good, faithful ones,” she bravelv 
said. “ I do not need it ! But, I will never forget 
you!” 

“ You shall take it.” affectionately prayed the old 
butler. “There r nothing in this world but gold’ It 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


23 


is the only master — at the last! There is only gold! 
Without gold, the Barin is no better than a moujik; 
the Barina than a gypsy beggar! You must take it. 

“ Here is the dear, dead master’s little belongings! 
His watch, his golden eyeglasses, his bosom pearls; 
the watch I have wound for thirty years, and, only 
seventeen roubles ! You must take our money ! ” 

Awed by her gentle promise to take if need came, 
they stole away, and left her there, sadly listening to 
the chime of the old repeater, the first sound which had 
charmed her ear in the old happy days when there wa's 
an angel in the house, and before the usurer’s shackles 
had crushed her father’s heart. 


CHAPTER II. 

AUNT TATIA’S DIPLOMACY. 

An electric thrill seemed to arouse all the dwellers in 
the Maison Kriloff, as a splendid sleigh dashed up the 
next day, in a blinding snowstorm, and the gold-banded 
cap of the dvornik flew off, as he dashed out to open 
the doors leading into the covered archway of the great 
court. 

There were dozens of heads at the windows of the 
great faqade, and in the wide halls’ of the vast mansion 
lady’s maid and tutor, servant and pageboy, all awaited 
eagerly the first morsels of gossip. 

But, all these were doomed to disappointment, for 
there was no one quick enough to catch a glimpse of the 
face of the lady who was Barbe Anykoff’s companion. 

True, there was visible a fleecy bundle of sables, a 
rich sea-otter turban, a filmy Circassian veil, and the 
quick, pattering sound of Parisian bottines was heard 
as Xenie Karovitch disappeared within the splendid 
apartment of Madame Barbe Anykoff. 

But no sign of life was discernible in the Kriloff resi- 
dence, and the domestics below, the porters in the cav- 
ernous casemates piling the fragrant birchwood, the 
marmitons of the rotisseries, the lounging attendants, 


24 the shield of his honor. 

had no bit of gossip wherewith to reward their in- 
quisitive patrons. 

And so, the night-life of the huge apartment house 
went on— light and laughter within, crystalline cold 
and driving flakes without. 

Youth and beauty swarmed in and out of the Maison 
Krilofif, operaward, supperward, seeking palace and 
hall. 

The marble stairways of the six stories were ever 
thronged with lover and schemer, with student and 
officer, with priest and police spy. 

Sly gypsy beauties stole in there, light of foot and 
hard of heart, to meet their vulpine adorers, and grave 
officials buttoned up life and death secrets under their 
furs, as the sleighs came and went in the courtyard. 

Silence still reigned in the darkened Krilofif home, 
where Marie lay on a Persian divan, her mind haunted 
with the simple old servitor’s reiterated code: “ There 
is nothing in the world but gold, good, red gold! It is 
the last love of all; the one cure-all! ” 

With her soul still shaken with the first rude blast 
of adversity, her untouched heart dominated only by a 
natural sorrow, the orphan, all unconscious of her beau- 
ty, stood unarmed at the threshold of a world as yet 
unknown to her, the seething passion whirlpool of Rus- 
sian life. 

And, innocent child-woman, simple-hearted and un- 
stained, she waited alone for the scroll of the future to 
unroll. 

As ignorant of the fierce pleasures of the Winter City 
as a babe, she had only vaguely dreamed of the life and 
love of the great world without while poring over the 
expurgated belles-lettres of the Catharine Institute. 

In no human heart had she discerned the strong tide 
of the pride of life, save the brief glimpses of Xenie 
Karovitch, the dazzling “ Aunt Tatia ” whose thrall 
seemed to be on all men. 

There was surely some life secret here which she had 
not learned in the unbroken gray surroundings of her 
colorless life. 

Gray clouds, gray mists, cold, gray-sanded snows; 
leaden-gray skies, the neutral gray background of pur- 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 25 

poseless days, of undreamed dreams, of the gray pall 
which covered her future and hid with its mantle the 
life tragedy played out before her blinded eyes. 

And now, while awaiting the arrival of the imperious 
patrician Xenie Karovitch she recalled the ominous 
words : “ Beware of her, if she ever wakes ! She has 
your own ideality, veiling her mother’s spirited and 
passionate nature ! ” 

“ Femme incomprise — let her but know her power, 
let her wear her crown ; it will be either one of wildest 
jovs or bitterest sorrows! ” 

“ And she will wake at last, for there is but one arch 
magician, angel, or devil — Love ! Love’s wings are 
overfleet, and, like the panther's feet, the feet of Love.” 
There is no power that will turn her back, once that her 
feet tread the flinty paths which we women follow 
through life! ” 

While the orphan awaited the arrival of this brilliant 
woman who was her one life enigma, there was a reso- 
lute campaign opening across the silent halls of the 
Maison Kriloff, 

Baroness Xenie Karovitch had emerged from her 
furs and wraps, and, seated at the table with Barbe 
Anykoff, plunged “ in media res.” 

“ First, my dear Barbe, you are to give me your 
Swiss. I must send a note to Kalomine ” — the beauty 
bent her head to avoid a tell-tale blush — “ and a sum- 
mons to the Hebrew jackal ! He is only the paid tool 
of the usurers who are swallowing up every reachable 
Russian estate ! and he shall feel mv claws ! Go over to 
Marie; send me Elia and the nurse. Tell Marie that I 
will be here on the midnight train. I must see Kalo- 
mine before I alarm Weinstock, and I wish to closely 
question the servants. You can tell Marie that you 
have had a telegram from me. I will send for you at 
midnight, and then come in with my wraps on, just as if 
I came from the train.” 

Xenie Karovitch watched with dreamy ( eyes her 
friend’s exit. “ I wonder if she suspects,” mused the 
newcomer. Baroness Xenie’s thoughts went back ten 
years to the night when the director of the Imperial 


26 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

Bank had first leaned over her chair in rapture at the 
opera. 

It was before the meeting of the reigning belle with 
the saturnine General Baron Michel Wraxine. 

“ I am an old woman now,” thought the widow, a 
Venus Victrix still at thirty-three, “ and Alexander 
Kalomine may not have forgiven me ; but he was al- 
ways bon camarade, and I must fight for the child’s 
sake. We shall see ! ” 

It was too true that Madame Barbe Anykoff recalled 
a buried chronique scandaleuse. “ Can she win him 
back now ? ” thought the still handsome blond pa- 
trician. “ And yet, all men are as wax in her hands.” 

The romance of the old faded from Madame Kar- 
ovitch’s busy mind as Elia glided silently into the little 
room, where the fair traveler was discussing a pheasant 
and a well-warmed bottle of Clos Vougeot. 

A smile of coming triumph hovered on the curved 
lips of the beautiful woman. Already the tall Swiss 
was dashing along in a sleigh to the yacht club, where 
Excellence Kalomine always consecrated his evenings to 
the fickle goddess Fortuna. 

“ If he remembers Xenie Karqvitch he will come,” 
proudly declared the imperious beauty, as she com- 
placently saw herself handsomely reflected in the glass. 

When Elia dropped on his knee and kissed her hand 
Xenie wasted no query in sympathy. “ Tell me,” she 
sharply cried, “ did poor Demetrius leave any money? ” 

The old man’s gloomy face foreshadowed his answer. 

“ And Helene’s jewels — the diamonds — the pearls — 
her ruby necklace — where are they?” 

“ The lawyer took them all,” said Elia, “ six months 
ago ; half to the bank, half to the pawnshop,” the old 
man babbled on, “ but the banker Milovitch bought 
them all for the great sinking woman here — the Italian. 
I know his man — and — he told me.” 

Xenie Karovitch bounded from her chair. “ Poor 
Demetrius, doting fool ! Robbed with his eyes open ! 
I’ll have this Weinstock in the fortress. Thank God 
for this! The Grand Duke Anatole will be here in 
three days; and now, for Kalomine! He must aid me, 
at any price.” 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


27 


There was a burning flood of crimson on her cheeks 
as she checked herself and sharply cried : “ Tell me all ! 
quick ! for I must know what to do ! These harpies 
shall disgorge all that Demetrius did not throw away 
himself ! ” 

The revengeful beauty at last had heard all that the 
nurse and butler could reveal, and now, armed with 
Madame AnykofFs disclosures, only awaited the ar- 
rival of her visitor to plant her heavy artillery for an 
instant attack. 

“ Just as I fancied, robbed with his eves open ! Poor 
Helene ! If she had lived she would have shielded 
him! Alas! Marie has but her face for her fortune! 
Face and figure,” mused the baroness, as she dismissed 
the servants with a stern injunction to say nothing of 
her arrival. 

“ If what Barbe says is true, Marie, ‘ en bonnes for- 
tunes,’ with a suitable setting, will be a reigning 
beauty.” 

With a start which brought the blood leaping to her 
heart, the brilliant woman gazed at the little card sud- 
denly handed her by Barbe’s maitre d’hotel. The sim- 
ple words brought a wild surge of emotion to her 
stormy breast. 

She stood holding the card : “ Alexandre Kalomine, 
Pirecteur de la Banque Imperial,” as a stately man si- 
lently parted the drooping curtains of the alcoved cau- 
sene. 

One glance was enough, for the tall stranger ex- 
tended both his arms ! 

“ Xenie,” he cried. “ After all these years ! ” And it 
was no feigned emotion which caused Xenie Karovitch 
to meet his eyes in a silent glance of entreaty, as she 
drew him down to a place on the divan. 

“Can I count on you, Alexandre?” she faltered, 
“ after our bitter parting — after all my folly ? ” 

“ One such moment makes me forget the past,” said 
the director, raising her hand to his lips and covering it 
with passionate kisses. 

“ You shall have your reward,” murmured Xenie, 
with a veiled glance which made her listener quiver in 
every thrilling nerve. “ There has been a great wrong 


28 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


done — a crime — a spoliation of Demetrius’s orphan 
child ! You alone can save her aught from the wreck ! 
Will you be my one instrument to punish these jack- 
als?” 

“ I am y-ours to the death ! ” quickly cried the great 
financier. ‘ Tell me all ; but first ” 

There was a silence in which two hearts beat madly 
in a reflex of an old, lost love, and then tlu. rosy Delilah 
knew that her Samson had bowed again to the yoke he 
loved — the clinging white arms which were wreathed 
around him in this hour of a woman’s regained power. 

In half an hour, the acute-m nded Kalomine had 
fathomed all the audacious plan of the Baroness Xenie, 
and the acute financier marveled at the cunning of the 
woman whom he had once thought only to be a baby- 
faced Venus, fit only to be man's plaything, and only 
worthy of the dalliance of an idle hour. 

“ I will come to-morrow afternoon, as you wish, 
Xenie,” he whispered. “ If you can only trap this 
scheming usurer, he will reveal the plots of those be- 
hind him. I will see my friend Milovitch to-morrow. 
If Weinstock had no right to sell the jewels outright, 
then you are safe, if the Grand Duke Anatole will, get 
you an order for an inquisition into the mortgages. 
Detain Weinstock here till I come! And then, 
Xenie? ” he hesitatingly said. 

“ Victory first,” answered the undaunted woman. 
“ After that you shall feel my gratitude. I shall re- 
main here until it is time to go to Yalta.” 

The return of Baroness Xenie’s messenger admon- 
ished the official that it was time to depart. 

“ Hasten, mon ami,” whispered Xenie. “ I have 
Wein stock’s answer. He will come, with all the papers, 
to-morrow at two.” 

“ Good,” joyously cried the banker. “ Give him no 
hint of his peril. Hear his whole story. Get all the 
documents ready. I will breakfast at the club with 
Milovitch, and, if all is well, bring him directly here.” 

Xenie Karovitch sat. alone while the Imperial Bank 
official disappeared discreetly. 

In his richly furred surtout, his dark eyes gleaming 
out over a silvery sable beard, Kalomine was a noble 


THE SHIELD' OF HIS HONOR. 


29 


figure, stately and distinguished. At forty-five, master 
of the financial secrets of the great Imperial Bank, he 
was a power in St. Petersburg, though the glittering 
court circle was closed to him, by his mere private sta- 
tion and his commercial functions. 

“ A pity,” murmured the audacious Xenie. “ He has 
heart, and. is fondly attached to me! But, Wraxine’s 
station and his hold on the Grand Duke is my only 
anchor in the tossing sea of trouble ! If Alexandre had 
but Wraxine’s noble rank — then, I might gain a solid 
footing at last ! ” 

With all the recklessness of her class, the Baroness 
Xenie was plunged in a sea of floating debt, and yet she 
had preserved her Volhvnian estate unmortgaged, 
trusting to the aid of General Baron Wraxine, who 
was the second self of the powerful young Grand Duke 
Anatole, Inspector-General of the Russian Cavalry. 

Wraxine had vaguely hinted at a great stroke to be 
made in the summer, when the commands of the army 
corps and the outlying military districts were to be 
rearranged. 

“ If we hold the Grand Duke’s, favor, Xenie,” was 
Wraxine’s parting injunction, “ if he fails us not, then 
your debts and mine will be washed out by the first 
wave of our impending fortune! Keep him in eye, 
deny him nothing, watch him in all things, and I will 
appear at your side to turn the scale at the crucial mo- 
ment ! We must wait till the command at Rovno 
comes up for a final settlement ! ” 

Seated gazing triumphantly in her mirror, Xenie 
Karovitch now awaited the proper moment for her sup- 
posed arrival on the midnight train. The regained em- 
pire over the rich banker smoothed away her one 
pressing need in her dashing campaign, ready money, 
the supply of the sinews of war ! 

“ I must hide my intimacy with Kalomine from 
Wraxine’s friends here ! Michel is a ravening wolf in 
his jealousy of all men, save the Grand Duke,” the fair 
intrigante laughed, softly. “ Kalomine must conceal 
his amorettes from the world here, for a director-gen- 
eral of the Imperial Bank must be above all suspicion 
of human weakness. The tide is surely setting my way. 


30 


THE SHIELD OF HTS HONOR. 


Marie is young and absolutely inexperienced ! She must 
be held helplessly in my hands, and, as she has not a 
rouble, she will be a mere pawn in my game ! And 
she must know nothing ! Once that her passions were 
aroused Helene’s daughter would be as intractable as 
her mother ! ” 

At thirty-three, Xenie Karovitch’s figure was that of 
the Venue de Melos. In her dark dress, molded to 
her perfect form, the imperial otter trimming accentu- 
ating the rich blue of her robe, the Muscovite was a 
lovely vision of the pride of life. Her soft, brown tresses 
were coiled in rich masses around her stately head, 
where the full, pleasure-loving lips and tender eyes, 
dark as the sloe, shaded down the marked intelli- 
gence of her forehead. The clear brown of her satiny 
cheeks glowed now with the crimson of her latest tri- 
umph, and she had noted with delight how her velvety 
voice had brought the light of passion once more to the 
eyes of the pleasure-jaded banker ! 

“ Not an old woman yet ! ” murmured the imperious 
beauty, “ not while men yield like melting wax ! Time 
has halted in his path, and stayed his kindly hand. Now 
for this simple girl ! She must only know me as a 
Lady Bountiful ! ” 

Throwing her blue fox shuba lightly over her shapely 
shoulders, Xenie Karovitch swept lightly across the si- 
lent marble halls. In a few moments she was fondly 
clasped in Marie’s arms! 

“ There, my lonely dove, you are to suffer no more ; 
you are to sleep ! I shall not leave you again ! ” mur- 
mured Xenie, brushing the tired girl’s eyelids down. 
“ To-morrow, you shall tell me all ! ” 

With a significant glance at Barbe Anykoff, the bar- 
oness glided from the room, only to be followed soon 
by her semi-confidante. 

“ The sleeping potion in a little wine has done its 
work, Xenie,” laughed Madame Anykoff. “ Come over 
for a little causerie, and then, rest for your opening 
campaign.” 

The good-humored widow Anykoff looked thin and 
blanched in the yellow candlelight, as the two drank 
a merry bumper of champagne in Barbe Anykoff’s bou- 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


31 


doir. The light-colored robes, the pale turquoises, the 
thinned golden hair, and the blanched complexion, tell- 
ing of veloutine and poudre de riz, only evidenced Barbe 
Anykoff’s gallantly unsuccessful struggle against her 
forty odd years of headlong pleasure. 

“ Xenie,” frankly chattered the good-natured widow, 
“ did you remark that child’s startling beauty ? Look 
to your own laurels ! ” 

“ She is now only a princess of snows,” answered 
Xenie. “ Given the unconscious return of her youthful 
spirits and a little ripening, with the attractions of dress 
and jewels, she will sweep everything before her ! Alas ! 
she has no money, and so I must launch her on the tide 
soon, and make her a position by the sheer force of her 
singularly thrilling beauty. She would be a mate for a 
Grand Duke.” 

“ Look to her,” seriously said Barbe. “ This old 
fortress has been a faithful safeguard, but once 
launched in the gay world men will struggle for her 
smiles, and you know our tiger-hearted Russians.” 

“ I shall always be at her side, Barbe,” said the brave 
freelance of society, “ and she shall have a proper set- 
ting, a fitting entourage, and a brilliant career, if she 
only trusts to me ! ” 

“ Look to her,” dreamily said Barbe, as she bade her 
friend good night. “ There is tragedy in her eyes ! I 
fear the late flowering of her passions ! ” 

“ Ah, ma belle amie, I will see that she steers her 
life bark more by the head than the heart! Trust to me, 
she shall learn to play her part in the Comedie Hu- 
maine.” 

And long after Barbe Anykoff was wandering in the 
land of dreams that vigorous-minded plotter, Madame 
Karovitch, lay revolving the Napoleonic campaign 
which she had evolved for the morrow from the thor- 
ough disclosures of the old servants and Barbe Any- 
koff’s precis of the whole seasons crafty intrigues. 

“ De l’audace, de l’audace, toujours de l’audace,” was 
Xenie Karovitch’s deliberately chosen motto, and, bright 
and rosy, she took up the reins of office on the mor- 
row, having already charmed the light back into Ma- 
rie’s eyes by her joyously effervescent ministrations. 


32 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

“ You are to have a daily drive ; you are not to mope ; 
you are to have some of your institute friends now 
rally around you, and you are soon to leave this old 
tomb,” confidently remarked Xenie. “ Under blue 
skies you shall pluck the forget-me-nots of Rovno, the 
roses of Yalta. And so, good-by to tears and lonely 
moods. I will never leave you, and you shall be my 
Princess Hebe, my fairy of spring.” 

With a resolute decision, Madame Karovitch had soon 
fathomed all details of the household situation. 

The grave-faced intendant had made his reports be- 
fore noon, and the indignant Baroness knew that for 
the last three months the entire receipts of the house 
had been paid in to Weinstock as the agent of the 
mortgage proprietors. 

Even Elia’s piles of unpaid bills were listed. It was, 
however, not so fatal an involvement ! There were but 
twenty thousand roubles of indebtedness. 

“ Bah ! ” murmured Xenie, lighting her cigarette. 
“ They must wait a year, at anv rate, by law ! Kalo- 
mine can cash these all now for fifteen thousand ! I 
will start in with, a clear field. And now, for this Mon- 
sieur Weinstock! ” 

It was with an adroit defiance of fortune that Xenie 
called in the most elegant equipage in the nearest 
ficurie! 

Marie, a star-eyed beauty, was whirling along in an 
unconscious elation of spirits at Madame AnykofFs side 
when Counselor Matthias Weinstock, portfolio in 
hand, entered the library where he had fought so many 
victorious battles of triumphant usury. He little 
dreamed, as the great French clock chimed three, that 
Director Alexandre Kalomine and the troubled mil- 
lionaire Milovitch were now cozily ensconced in Mad- 
ame Karovitch’s boudoir, enjoying a few hands at pic- 
quet while waiting for their cue. 

And Elia, with a frightened, pale face, timidly min- 
istered to two gentlemen without names, who were 
Strang looking misfits in their plain clothes, as they 
made merry at the family table in the great dining- 
room. 

There was a couple of sleighs and an escort of Cos- 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 33 

sacks awaiting the uplifted finger of the senior police 
officer now stationed across the Place Michel. 

Banker Milovitch was happy in a sudden windfall of 
the unhoped-for participation in a very profitable gov- 
ernment loan, in return for certain friendly disclosures 
already made to the director-general. 

With serenely steady eyes, the Baroness Karovitch 
had listened for an hour to Matthias Weinstock’s plau- 
sible interpretations of the masses of papers produced 
from the depths of his portfolio. 

For all the lady’s seeming quiet, an uneasy feeling 
had permeated the lawyer’s troubled mind. 

The Baroness seemed to show neither surprise nor 
resentment at the Pelion upon Ossa of poor Demetrius 
Kriloff’s unhappy speculations. 

And her brows only darkened at last when, with an 
awkward pause, Weinstock produced a bill of sale of all 
the personal articles in the apartments of the Kriloff 
family. 

This was made directly to the avaricious Weinstock 
by the dead enthusiast, and it was only dated two months 
previous to Baron Demetrius’s decease. 

The final proffer of the two thousand five hundred 
roubles for Marie Kriloff’s agreement to vacate brought 
the baroness, bounding to her feet. 

“ You have done well, very well, Weinstock, for your 
clients,” she bitterly said. “ I think that I now under- 
stand the whole affair.” 

“ And so, Madame la Baronne, I will leave you until 
such time as you may give me the names of your lawyers 
with whom I may settle all the details of possession.” 

There was a sneering smile of triumph on the German 
Hebrew’s face, for he had always recognized a foe in 
the bright-faced noblewoman. 

His hat was in his hand, and he was bowing low, 
when Madame Karovitch glided to the table and struck 
a silver gong. 

She whispered a word to Elia and then turned to the 
astonished money-broker. 

“ One moment, sir ! I have a question to ask you — 
just one single question!” 

The lawyer gasped, as the bearded Milovitch en- 


34 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


tered, followed by the elegant form of Monsieur Alex- 
andre Kalomine. 

“In the presence of these gentlemen/’ the lady quietly 
said, “ I ask you now to show your legal authority for 
the sale of the Souvaroff jewels ! ” 

The trapped rascal sank back into a chair. 

“Monsieur Demetrius,” he gasped. 

“ Had no right either to pledge or sell them ! They 
are the property of Baroness Marie Kriloff, a direct in- 
heritance from her mother,” cried Baroness Xenie, in a 
ringing voice. “ And, as the tutrice of my orphan 
niece, I now demand their instant return! ” 

“ I have no control of them ! ” cried the lawyer, sud- 
denly brought to bay. 

“ But, I have,” quietly said Constantine Milovitch, 
*‘ and I have this day listed them and deposited them 
with the Imperial Bank, sealed, in the possession of 
Director-General Kalomine, to await the action of the 
courts.” 

“ Is this true, Monsieur? ” sweetly said the victorious 
Baroness, turning her glowing black eyes calmly upon 
her recalled lover. 

The director-general presented a sealed receipt with 
his very best bow. “ I have listed them from the pa- 
pers given to my friend, and now, I acknowledge their 
possession.” 

“ Then,” sternly said the outraged woman, “ I de- 
mand the arrest of this man for their criminal conver- 
sion, and also for uttering here a forgery, a pretended 
bill- of sale of the whole movable property here in the 
Kriloff apartments. It is without witness, and an evi- 
dent forgery.” 

When Matthias Weinstock slunk to the door, he was 
confronted by the two impassive police agents. 

One of them, steppnig to the window, waved his 
hand. 

In five minutes, the two sleighs had departed under 
escort with the thunderstruck prisoner. 

While Weinstock cowered down in the police sleigh 
the two financiers were glancing over the schedules 
and papers scattered upon Demetrius Kriloff’s table. 

• “ It is easy to see the method adopted to swamp the 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 35 

poor Baron’s fortunes,” said the acute Milovitch. “ All 
these mortgages have been taken by various individuals 
at criminally usurious rates ; the names in some cases 
are those of Israelites who can not acquire realty by 
mortgage. All the interest, commissions, foreclosure 
fees, and expenses have been illegally compounded, and 
the whole sum has been transferred finally in one 
blanket mortgage to the Imperial Bank. There has 
been two hundred thousand roubles added by these ne- 
farious tricks, and,” he sadly said, “ there is but one 
way to obtain a recision and scaling down.” 

“ And that is ? ” breathlessly asked Baroness Xenie. 

“ A summary order from the Emperor’s privy coun- 
cil, directing the extra-official examination. In the 
meantime, I can aid you. I will press the charge 
against this scoundrel for the embezzlement of the jew- 
els, and sue him for the return erf the purchase price. 
I had to pay a premium myself, to obtain them.” 

Baroness Xenie’s eyes rested a moment searchingly 
on Kalomine’s face. They both knew the probable ex- 
tortion of the audacious Coralba, before that exigeant 
diva would allow Milovitch to substitute Outchini- 
koff’s very best diamond parure, en suite, for the covet 
ed Souvaroff gems. 

“ And how can I get this order? ” murmured Baron- 
ess Xenie. 

“ I am now transacting some heavy loan negotiations 
for the government, as well as rearranging the Grand 
Duke Anatole’s financial matters,” suavely said Kalo 
mine. “ I think that you met His Highness at Tiflis,” 
concluded the director. 

And then, Xenie Karovitch’s face flushed crimson as 
she bent her handsome head in assent. 

“ He must know all of the Wraxine flirtation,” 
mused the startled woman. 

“ I will ask the Grand Duke to come with me, Mad- 
ame,” courteously said Kalomine, “ and look at these 
papers! I know that Captain Serge Kriloff was once 
on his staff! If you beg for His Highness’s personal aid 
you can get that order in a week! And I will have our 
bank actuary sift out the real legal balances on the 
mortgages for which our bank must be recouped! 


36 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

“ I agree with my confrere there is at least two hun- 
dred thousand roubles of rebate due the estate! Only 
the duly legalized mortgages will hold in law! ” 

Monsieur Constantine Milovitch was a man of fine 
social perceptions! He gladly availed himself of Mad- 
ame Karovitch’s invitation for dinner in the ensuing 
week; and, then, bowing low over the fair champion’s 
hand, took his leave. 

The cozy breakfast in Xenie Karovitch’s boudoir 
which followed the departure of the observant Milo- 
vitch, put Madame Xenie in the highest good humor. 

“ I will send you our own lawyer,” said Kalomine. 
“ He will soon get at the roots of the vhole matter. 

“ As we are a governmental institution controlled by 
the strictest code, we can not accept usury, and as for 
Weinstock’s pretended bill of sale, it is neither stamped 
nor witnessed. I wlH send our lawyer to harass him 
in the civil prison, and as his associates dare not come 
forward, he will make a clean breast of his roguery. 

“ The Grand Duke Anatole will be here in four days. 
I will bring him here myself to see the papers! I will 
leave him to you — say a few pleasant words, and he 
will get you that order from the council. In the mean- 
time, I will send you thirty thousand roubles this after- 
noon by my confidential clerk. Let him have the 
dossier of the debts. I will have them all scaled down 
a half and paid at once.” 

“ And yet,” sadly murmured Xenie, “ we must leave 
this old family property.” 

“ True,” rejoined the banker, “ but, the order of 
council will give you a year’s grace. My summer villa 
at Viborg is yours. You can easily ask Madame Any- 
koff to be your companion, and, next winter, you can 
have the choice of any of the handsomest apartments 
in any of the great properties which the bank con- 
trols. 

“ So, only handle the Grand Duke with velvet gloves, 
and I will save you all that I can from this wrecked 
fortune! ” 

Kalomine read Xenie’s gratitude in her glowing 
eyes. “ Of course, Xenie,” he murmured, “ I must 
put these moneys only at your disposition. 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 37 

“ Poor Demetrius left dozens of legal claims arising 
from his speculations. You must be made tutrice of 
your niece’s estate. In this way I can hand the sums 
over to you, privately, as realized, and the cormorants 
will be powerless to take the funds away. Excellence 
Marie must leave all her business to you! ” 

“ Trust to me for that, Alexandre,” murmured the 
fair intrigante. “ She is a child — an absolute babe — as 
far as knowledge of the world goes! Poor neophyte! 
She showed me to-day seventeen roubles — all the little 
inheritance of Demetrius’s misfortunes.” 

“ And, she must not have an idea of any of her 
rights,” silkily continued the banker. 

“ Only under your complete control can she make 
any headway! She must never suspect our hidden 
friendship,” he murmured. 

“ And the best disposition of her is a rich marriage — 
and as soon as possible! ” 

“We are comrades, allies; yes, even more; what 
you will,” faltered Xenie. “ But I must have a free 
hand until I can rid myself of this child-hearted wom- 
an ! Then, after that ” 

“ You belong to me alone,” cried the enraptured 
man, as he knelt at her feet. 

That evening, while Marie, now happy at heart, 
joined Madame Anykoff’s little circle of intimates in 
superb state at the opera, Xenie Karovitch queened it 
over her hastily gathered friends. For the Queen of 
the Red Roses had resumed her vicarious empire over 
Alexandre Kalomine’s fiery passions. 

In her busy brain were already revolving a hundred 
schemes for the exploitation of the lovely orphan. 

“ I must dispose of her quickly, and to my best ad- 
vantage,” mused Xenie. “ For, after she tastes the 
cup of Life, she will not be a mere lay figure in my 
hands. And, at my side, she would soon shine me 
down ! ” 

The artful woman had caught the secret of control 
from her practical-minded lover. 

“The golden scepter is the only one! I will hold 
her helpless in my hands as long as I have the purse 
strings! ” 


38 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

And, yet, Xenie Karovitch wondered what niche the 
beautiful orphan would fill in the summer campaign 
at Rovno and Yalta. 

“ There is still the season of mourning. She must 
be made to feel her dependence upon me; and as to her 
future, Michel Wraxine must aid me! And so, this 
entangled estate will cover all my relations with Kalo- 
mine. He will surely hide our little winter amourette 
for his own sake, and I can trust to him.” 

It was a week later when the busy accountants of 
the Imperial Bank had finished their careful investiga- 
tions of the voluminous contents of Matthias Wein- 
stock’s portfolio. 

All was now life and light within the Kriloff home, 
for Xenie Karovitch’s stimulating presence had 
brought a freedom from all haunting cares. 

The cheerful servants now blithely moved around 
conscious of the sustaining power of that wealth which 
they deemed to be the natural element of the indefati- 
gable Baroness Xenie Karovitch. 

This tireless queen of fashion had filled the house 
with her own cheerful entourage; and, with a watchful 
prevision, Madame Anykoff was the ever-present 
chaperon, on the occasions when Xenie slipped away 
to a petit dejeuner with the bank director, or else to 
meet him, by well-arranged chance, at some glitte ing 
dinner. 

Nightly, the distinguished financier was seen leaning 
over the gilded chair of the Baroness at the opera or 
theater, while Madame Anykoff sung the praises of 
this fairy godmother to the orphan now nestling in 
her old home with a trustful heart. 

As a first fruit of victory, Baroness Xenie proudly 
displayed the Souvaroff diamonds, the famous ruby 
necklace, or the great collar of pearls in the northern 
Vanity Fair, and la Signora Coralba set her pearly 
teeth in a useless rage to see the vanished gems shining 
down upon her from Xenie’s opera box. 

By a judicious leeerdemain, Matthias Weinstock 
had been released under espionage, and “ l’affaire Kri- 
loff ” was already an open scandal of the courts and 
financial circles. 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 39 

The resolute Kalomine was hewing, hip and thigh, 
the detected usurers who had basely abandoned the 
humble Weinstock to the blasts of adversity. 

There was an unwonted animation in the Place 
Michel on the afternoon when a superb troika of black 
Orloffs drew up before the grand entrance and the 
Cossack escort gathered around the courtyard when 
His Highness, the Grand Duke Anatole, descended, in 
stately fashion, from his superb sleigh. 

As the Grand Duke’s adjutant proudly passed up the 
marble stair bearing his imperial master’s personal 
card, the house servants, all en grande tenue, were 
marshaled in the halls. 

And, beaming with smiles, the Baroness Xenie, a 
dream of sinuous beauty, received her princely visitor 
in the grand old drawing-rooms. 

With a courtly gallantry, the tall scion of the 
Romanoffs bent over the jeweled hand of the loyal 
chatelaine, who welcomed him to the home of the Kri- 
loff’s and Souvaroff’s, who, for generations, had given 
their best blood to the service of the White Czar. 

“ Kalomine has told me of the attempted outrage,” 
graciously said the Grand Duke ; “ and if you will state 
the precise facts to me, I will be only too glad to en- 
treat the Emperor’s bounty, and to obtain for you the 
desired order! ” 

The alert woman, leading her royal guest to the 
library, soon traversed the ground-work of the medi- 
tated iniquity. 

“.Very good,” musingly said His Highness. “If 
you will be good enough to send in your name to the 
Emperor’s private secretary to-morrow at ten o’clock, 
I shall be in attendance upon my august uncle. I will 
have the honor to present you and second your re- 
quest. I am in attendance to-morrow at the Winter 
Palace to settle the matter of the summer changes of 
command. Shall we see you at Rovno? Wraxine will 
certainly be on duty there! He has begged the com- 
mand,” musingly said the Grand Duke. “ There is a 
huge military cantonment to be built; millions of rou- 
bles will be spent there! Forty thousand troops will 


40 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


be gathered there, and I shall command the maneu- 
vers..” 

“ I did think of taking the villa of Prince Lubo- 
mirski,” answered Baroness Xenie, with sudden 

blushes. “ That is if your Highness ” she stopped 

short in confusion. 

“ I hope that we shall have our little Tiflis circle all 
reunited there,” continued the Grand Duke. “ Wrax- 
ine is very anxious for the command; he has his ene- 
mies, of course, who has not, but ” with an instant 

courtesy, the Grand Duke sprang to his feet as Marie 
Kriloff silently entered the room. 

She paused in a sudden astonishment at the sight of 
this towering young cavalier, whose cold, blue eyes, 
strong features, close-cropped hair, and sweeping cav- 
alry mustache indicated the soldier. 

But the imperial crown upon his golden shoulder- 
straps; the three grand crosses of Russia’s proudest 
orders on his gray uniform, attested the imperial 
blood. 

Stalwart young Romanoff, the Grand Duke, stood 
there transfixed by the lovely vision. 

The afternoon ride had brought back the faint roses 
to Marie’s pallid cheek; the golden-brown hair rippled 
over her Greek brows, and the tender, appealing light 
of her liquid brown eyes thrilled the princely visitor. 

Tall, beyond the average height of women, with an 
ideal grace of form, her dark robe throwing out in 
startling relief the exquisite delicacy of her lovely face, 
Marie Kriloff looked an angel, and walked a queen. 

With a proud humility, she dropped her eyes before 
the ardent gaze of the young prince, and then, rising 
in her confusion, glided away with a stately salutation, 
after the wondering Xenie had presented her beautiful 
charge. 

With ready gallantry, the Grand Duke had escorted 
the youthful beauty to the arched portiere, and as he 
sprang back to Xenie Karovitch’s side, he murmured: 

“ Au revoir, then; at the Winter Palace! To-mor- 
row shall be your day of victory! Tell me — why have 
I not before met this Hebe, ever fresh and fair? ” 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


41 


The Grand Duke’s brow lightened as he heard the 
story of the young girl’s orphanage. 

His voice was earnest in some newly formed purpose 
as he hoarsely whispered: 

“ Wraxine has privately told me of all his wishes! 
He is coming here, incognito, in two weeks to urge 
his claims to the Rovno command! If you will come 
to us, and cheer the Volhynian loneliness — if you will 
bring Baroness Marie to the Lubomirski villa — you 
may now write to .Wraxine that I shall make the selec- 
tion so dear to his heart ! ” , 

Their eyes met in an unspoken bargain, and then 
Xenie Karovitch was left, with a wildly beating heart, 
alone at her drawing-room door! 

“ It is the call of Fate,” she murmured. “ It means 
power, wealth, a golden future to Wraxine; luxury to 
me! Oh! for an hour alone with him! Kalomine must 
never know! ” 

And then, the busy devil of avarice and the lust of 
pleasure tempted Xenie Karovitch to the sale of a 
human soul! The dark way was open! 


CHAPTER III. 

AMONG THE ROSES AT ROVNO. 

With an assumed artlessness, Xenie Karovitch af- 
fected to ignore the visit of the Grand Duke at the din- 
ner, where, by a happy accident, Madame Anykoff 
diverted the mind of Marie from the personality of the 
imperial visitor. 

“ It is a case of arrested development,” mused the 
woman of the world, slyly watching her unassuming 
charge. 

In the days of their rapprochement, Baroness Xenie 
had, so far, failed to draw out the “ inner woman ” 
hidden in the young girl’s untroubled breast. 

Swept by the fierce storms of a life of pleasure, the 
agitated woman tried all the evening in her opera box 
to recall her own vacuity oi mind after the six years’ 


42 THE SHIELD OF HIS EIONOR. 

isolation of the Catherine Institute. And this orphan 
Marie had only left the semi-military discipline of the 
great seminary to drop into the death-in-life of her 
father’s lonely household. 

While the sorrows of Gilda moved hundreds of gen- 
tle bosoms, Baroness Xenie, all insensible of Kalo- 
mine’s whispered tenderness, pondered over the visit 
to the Winter Palace. She dared not follow out the 
young Grand Duke’s obvious meaning, and vet she 
found that, in her own future, Marie Kriloff was sud- 
denly selected by chance to be the architect of either 
Wraxine’s ruin or fortune. 

The long vigils of the night brought no counsel, and, 
with paler cheeks than her wont, Xenie Karovitch 
dressed for the informal presentation to the Czar. 

She herself stood at the parting of the ways ! There 
was Kalomine’s reawakened tenderness ! She knew, 
alas, the insecure tenure of a middle-aged voluptu- 
ary’s heart. 

“ He knows all my life since the deadly ball of a 
dueling Frenchman swept poor Feodor out of my 
arms into an early grave! And, tied down by the 
demands of his great financial trust, he would never 
dare to marry me! There is a quicksand beneath my 
feet. Marie would surely be an incumbrance to us; 
she would, at last, penetrate our secret! And even 
Kalomine’s chivalry can not guard my name here in 
Petersburg, where every other attendant is a spy! And 
— Wraxine, too — his rage on a discovery of my double 
dealing might cost both these men their lives! I 
would then be disgraced, exiled; perhaps imprisoned! 
And what will be the future with Wraxine — dependent 
on his heartless nature! He would cast me off in a 
moment if his devil of jealousy ever breaks loose! But, 
with Marie as a safety anchor — owing his place and 
command to her, through the sudden fancy of the 
Grand Duke — he would not dare to abandon me ! If I 

could but see him ” hardened as she was, she dared 

not write the guilty thoughts which now thronged her 
brain. 

“ This money recovered from these usurers will pay 
some of my pressing debts, and float Marie and I for 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 43 

a season or two. She would be a bond between Wrax- 
ine and myself. He would then be forced to consider 
me, and I can surely trust to Kalomine! ” 

She was still in an agony of doubt as she descended 
from her sleigh on the Place Razvodni. 

But the gentleman in waiting hurried her on 
through the great white ballroom to the Emperor’s 
private cabinet. 

She scarcely dared raise her eyes as the Grand Duke 
led her into the presence of the ruler of eighty millions. 

Answering in monosyllables, she saw at once how 
the way had been made smooth for her. 

“ I shall hope to know this poor orphaned girl mar- 
ried to one of my household,” said the kindly autocrat. 
“And. we will not ourselves forget her future! The 
order shall be delivered to you forthwith.” 

It was only when she was walking down the long 
corridor that Baroness Xenie felt her heart bound in a 
sudden delight. 

“ I telegraphed Wraxine last night to come instantly 
to Moscow,” slowly said the Grand Duke Anatole. 
“ He will be there in a week, and you can see him if 
you go down ! Remember what I said last night. Let 
him at once telegraph his application privately to me 
here upon his arrival, after you have conferred with 
him. The corps commander at Rovno will have an 
important trust ! And a cardinal point is, that he 
should be married ! You understand my wishes.” 

The full purpose of the speaker flashed upon the 
agitated woman’s mind. And as her better angel 
struggled with her, she recalled Michel Wraxine’s 
stormy pleadings: 

“ With you, I can win’ There will be hundreds of 
thousands of roubles to be gathered up in the great 
operations there of building the establishment of a per- 
manent corps. You and I need each other! We both 
know the true elixir of life! There is nothing but 
gold — it is the only talisman, and there is but one way 
for you and I to reach the gold we need! One season’s 
command there, and your debts — my own — will vanish 
like dew on the desert sands ! ” 

“ Meet him there,” placidly murmured the Grand 


44 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


Duke ; “ and on your return I will again dine with 
you! General Wraxine shall find his appointment 
awaiting him ; but, only on your promise to me.” 

The startled woman murmured a few words as to 
Marie’s period of mourning. 

“ There would be a few months’ delay, Your High- 
ness,” she faltered. 

“ But, you will surely come to Rovno and bring her. 
Your life at Villa Lubomirski shall be a paradise. I 
ask no more than that! Wraxine understands me very 
well,” the young prince said, his face darkening in an 
angry scowl. 

Only the keen-eyed woman there knew that while 
Kalomine was the purveyor of the Grand Duke's 
purse, that General Baron Michel Wraxine had been 
his ame damnee. For the Emperor Alexander III was 
a stern arbiter of social purity, and the faithful husband 
of the beautiful Dagmar was feared by the social 
wrong-doer. 

“ Remember, now, that vour future is in your own 
hands,” briefly concluded the preoccupied young man. 
“ I expect to hear from you next, in Moscow.” 

The Baroness smiled her assent as she left her 
tempter. 

As the sleigh dashed along over the Place du Palais, 
the paper hidden in Xenie Karovitch’s bosom weighed 
upon her bosom like lead. She sighed as she thought 
of the fearful price to be paid. 

Truth and honor, her womanly loyalty, and the sac- 
rifice of an unstained soul! 

But, suddenly, she saw hanging far above her in -the 
pale green skies, the flashing dome of St. Isaac’s hang- 
ing in the ether, gleaming with the golden spoil of 
Napoleon’s buried army. 

“ There is nothing but gold,” she murmured. “ Even 
the cross there is golden ; and for this golden harvest 1 
will go on to the end ! ” 

As her sleigh drew up before her own door, an old 
woman, clad in tattered rags held out a withered hand 
for alms. Tossing the crone a rouble, Xenie Krro- 
vitch lightly ascended the stairway. Her last scruple 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 45 

had vanished ; and, then, throwing her arms around the 
beautiful orphan, she betrayed her with a kiss. 

Once launched upon the downward current, im- 
pelled by the thirst for place and power .and pleasure, 
the reckless woman lost the voice of conscience. 

When she deposited the priceless paper with Di- 
rector Kalomine in the early afternoon, she smiled at 
his gloomy misgivings over her voyage to Moscow. 

“ Affaires de famille, mon cher,” she laughingly 
said. “ You can press on the business during my ab- 
sence; and if you are out of sight, you will not be out of 
mind; for I shall write you daily.” 

He knew now the promise of her eyes. 

A week later, Madame Xenie Karovitch breathlessly 
awaited the arrival of General Wraxine in her splendid 
rooms at the Slaviansky Hotel in Moscow, for the en- 
ergetic general had hastened on from Tiflis, his ambi- 
tion fired with the Grand Duke’s telegram. 

A certain familiarity with the idea had already 
robbed the proposed hidden maneuver of its initial 
blackness in the desperate woman’s mind. 

Greedy of pleasure, improvident and reckless, she 
only knew that the lamp of Aladdin was being robbed 
for her; and while Kalomine ardently longed for her 
return, all St. Petersburg now knew that the Grand 
Duke Anatole’s sleigh daily followed Madame Barbe 
Anykoff’s superb equipage in the afternoon parade 
upon the Naberejnaia. 

But, while maids of honor laughed, and gallant court- 
iers smiled, no one saw Marie Kriloff’s slender, dark- 
robed form, muffled under her fleecy Circassian shawl, 
nestling at the side of the full-blown dame de societe. 
And already, in far-away Rovno, the voice of Spring 
was whispering over the silent fields! The tender 
leaves were beginning to faintly unfold their living 
green, and the life of another dreamy summer was be- 
ginning to stir in the still leafless rose alleys of Prince 
Lubomirski’s gardens. 

It was a fierce passion-play of two human tigers 
there that hour, when Michel Wraxine gazed into 
Xenie Karovitch’s welcoming eyes on his arrival from 
the trackless southern plains. 


46 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

Rugged and sturdy was the hardy soldier at fifty- 
three; his iron-gray mustache sweeping over pitiless 
lips. 

With a scQre of stars and medals gleaming on his 
broad breast, the round Tartar head, his small, deep, 
sunken eyes, and heavy jaws, showed all the signs of 
his relentless Kalmuck ancestry. 

Master of all the arts of camp and court ; a profound 
voluptuary and a Machiavelli of dissimulation, Wrax- 
ine’s sword had bravely carved out his pathway of for- 
tune from the Crimea to Samarcand, and from the 
Caucasus to Plevna. 

Bold, relentless, and unmindful of all obstacles, he 
now aspired to the almost boundless power of a corps 
commander; and yet, he started back as the tempting 
woman unveiled in shamefaced words the hidden con- 
spiracy against the dark-eyed orphan. 

The purple veins, in Wraxine’s face were swollen as 
he strode up and down the gaudy hotel parlor, vainly 
striving to ignore the infamy of the secret conspiracy 
for the unwitting dishonor of Demetrius KrilofT’s 
lonely child. 

“ Tell me — tell me, Xenie,” he cried, grasping the 
shrinking woman’s jeweled hands, “ is this your own 
devilish work ? ” 

And, yet, base as she was at heart, the woman at his 
side told the truth when she murmured: 

“ No! He would have it so! ” 

“I must think — think!” growled the man, who 
feared to face the dread alternatives. “ It is a golden 
future for us both! There is wealth and power; but 
is there no other way? ” 

The strong man groaned in his rage. He gazed 
down into the trembling woman’s eyes. 

“No mortal must ever know of this. It binds you 
to me forever — in heaven and hell, to eternity.” 

“ When will you telegraph? ” muttered Xenie Karo- 
vitch, aghast at the frenzy of her saturnine lover. 

“Let me think all over!” cried Wraxine. “There 
is ruin staring us in the face, unless I get this profitable 
command. You are criblee with debt. I am on the 
brink of a final plunge! Our fortunes are linked to- 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


47 


gether now for life — to the very last! But, without 
your aid, I can never reach this pinnacle! Once there, 
by Heaven, he shall never displace me! He would not 
dare ” 

“ Ah! Michel,” sighed the frightened woman; “ what 
hidden means of vengeance are in his hand! It is a 
fearful climax! For, if you refuse, I shall never trust 
myself again on the Neva. I will leave Russia and 
hide myself in Austria or Italy! I would some day 
suddenly disappear; torn out of the busy glare of life, 
never to be heard of more! Leave me until to-morrow, 
and if you decide to act, come to me when it is done! 
Otherwise we part here for life, and I will steal secretly 
over the frontier! I dare not return to the Place 
Michel! Barbe Anykoff will give Marie a shelter, and 
then, perhaps, her face will win her a place in the 
world of fashion! As for me, I can not go back! I 
fear to go forward, for, something tells me of a fearful 
retribution! ” 

The two who shared the awful consciousness of a 
nameless design, now felt, for all their world-hardened 
recklessness, the shame of Adam and Eve; for they 
had discovered to each other the unpardonable sin, the 
crushing out of the fair rose of life, blossoming in white 
purity in the heart of the orphaned beauty, whose 
stately seclusion had kept her unsoiled by sin; un- 
singed by the fierce furnace heat of the passion storms 
of the Neva! 

And they dared not voice in words the compact 
which was to be sealed only by guilty eyes; the tacit 
consent of fallen angels. 

“ I have to pay my. respects here at the palace, 
Xenie,” muttered General Wraxine; “and you know 
the tongues of Moscow’s gossips can bruit a danger- 
ous secret, far beyond the clangor of the bells of her 
four hundred churches. I shall affect a great military 
preoccupation here! You and I must not be seen to- 
gether! Make the round of all your friends! Show 
yourself at the theater, opera, and ball. Should we 
meet, merely notice me, en passant! If,” he hesitated, 
“ I decide to apply, then I will send you, to-morrow 
morning, a basket of Parma violets before noon! I 


48 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

shall not come to you here again. A thousand, jealous 
eyes are upon me, for your sake, bel demonio ! ” 

He strode up and down in an agony of indecision. 

“ You say that you will not go back to the Neva,” 
he grumbled, at last. “ The girl is left penniless by 
Demetrius’s death; you have no money; you are even 
deeper in the black gulf of debt than I am! Now, if 
you leave Russia, how would she live? ” 

Xenie Karovitch murmured: “ She might be named 
a maid of honor,” the woman faltered. 

“Yes, and the merciless Grand Dukes would soon 
chase her from the Winter Palace; or, draw a line 
through her name on the list! Marie is absolutely 
penniless; what would you do with her if you fled to 
France, Austria, or the Riviera? She would be merely 
a clog upon you. You say that she is au fond de coeur, 
intractable! En femme galante, you,” he smiled bit- 
terly, “ would reign easily for a few years, out of Rus- 
sia, et apres? ” 

Xenie Karovitch was now sobbing bitterly. 

“ You know that she would be at once chased out of 
Petersburg if you left her there penniless,” continued 
the remorseless officer ; “ and, an ingenue with you 
would be a millstone around your neck if you seek les 
bonnes fortunes abroad ! ” 

The General closed his golden cigarette-case with a 
smart clash as he said: 

“ And if she must make her own way in life, as pen- 
niless beauties have to, she could never make three 
fortunes in one, and find a secure protection in a pow- 
erful friend placed high above all the shocks of for- 
tune! ” 

“ You are right, Michel,” desperately said the tor- 
tured Baroness Xenie. “ But, only from one stand- 
point! Don’t you see that we are hopelessly ruined, 
you and I, unless we bend this girl to our will! And 
dare you show her the path which lies before her! ” 

They saw each others unveiled souls, naked in all 
the ghastly moral leprosy of the golden code. 

“ She must find it out for herself! ” brutally ejacu- 
lated the Tartar General. “ Later — bit by bit ! The 
path of life is a curve! Of course, there would be fet- 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 49 

ters; but golden ones! ” hoarsely murmured the volup- 
tuary. “ Neither of us dare formulate, in words, what 
the Grand Duke leaves unspoken ! To put it fairly — 
in any other way — she will be crushed under the iron 
heel of misfortune — should she be self-poised, she can 
rule this golden future, live under the diamond shower, 
and then, the element of adverse fate is eliminated ! ” 

But, Xenie Karov’tch, gazing stubbornly out at the 
polyglot medley of the Slavianskv Bazar, was silent ! 

“ Apres tout,” growled Wraxine. “ You only show 
her the helplessness of an absolute penury ! I will see 
that you are bien rangee! For all you know, Marie 
Kriloff may be a very Circe. She is of your own 
blood ! ” 

“ Let her pick her own way over life’s hot plough- 
shares ! Listen ! I will send a telegram to-morrow to 
St. Petersburg. You must remain here a week after 
I am called there. Let the Grand Duke play his role 
of Faust ! ” 

“ If I am named to this command, you must be a 
stranger to me, at least until the Gazette has noised 
the affair abroad ! But, if I am named, I will at once 
send you that peerless Circassian set of turquoises and 
diamonds, wrenched from old Schamyl’s favorite sul- 
tana — let it be the token of our victory ! Stay here 
till you hear from me ! ” 

“ If I am gazetted, I shall — at once — secure the Lu- 
bomirski villa ; I will avoid using any names with 
His Highness ! You can do the same — serpent as you 
are ! Bien connu, that if I reign at Rovno, you bring 
this pale blossom with you.” 

“ To master her, let her never forget her dependence 
on you for money, every rouble * ” 

The artful noble sneeringly said : “ She will soon 

develop, with emulation, her desire for luxury, in the 
brilliant circle of a corps headquarters, where a hun- 
dred beauties angle for the Grand Duke. Once en 
train, then leave the future to me ! Te m’en charge de 
tout ! ” 

“ And I am, then, to be passive? ” murmured Xenie, 
her £yes flashing in a somber light ! 

“ You are to be the power behind the throne — you 


50 


THE SHIELD OF HJS HONOR. 


are to rule — you are the only woman on earth fit to 
share this last forlorn-hope dash for fortune ! ” 

“As for Marie, laissez faire is all you need ! Let her 
have her head — you will know the token of the violets, 
and the meaning of the jewels ! ” 

“ But, on your life, not one word of detail to the 
Grand Duke if I am named. I.et him take it all for 
granted; let him build the pyramid of our fortunes 
while he fabricates his own Chateaux en Espagne ! ” 

“ It is the unpledged trinity of a silent alliance ! You 
and I only gain strength and become fixed, immovable, 
by his closing the other point and angle! ” 

Right wisely had Michel Wraxine judged the cow- 
ardly course to pave the way for a final victory. 

It was after a night of revel that Xenie Karovitch 
found, at noon, the princely corbeille of dark-blue vio- 
lets in her salon, with neither card nor token ! 

Steeped in Moscow’s gayest pleasures, she felt that 
the great game of infamy was now being played for 
her, with no stake up on her own account. 

And, with a feverish zest, she followed up every mad 
distraction of the semi-Asiatic metropolis, until the 
drama of the future should unroll the first act of its 
passion play on the icy banks of the still frozen Neva. 

A sudden turn of Fortune’s wheel hardened the heart 
of the conscience-shaken woman. 

Alexandre Kalomine’s letter of triumph was a secret 
recall to the desperate intrigante, whom the headlong 
young Grand Duke vainly fancied a mere puppet in his 
own hand. 

Xenie Karovitch read with a wild elation the letter 
which recounted the abject surrender of the usurers, 
who had been smitten with a sudden terror by the fear 
of full revelations by the cowardly Weinstock. 

“ There are two hundred thousand roubles now 
available to your credit,” wrote the banker, “ and the 
privilege of the Kriloff apartment, rent free, as long as 
the Excellence Marie or yourself cares to use it ! But, 
one condition is asked — they wish to be saved from all 
criminal prosecution! And, so they have consented 
to pay over fifty thousand roubles more for Baroness 
Kriloff’s title to the Maison Kriloff and to give iv' 1! 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


51 


the claims on the furniture and personal property ! 
But, they will only do it through me, in confidence, 
and they ask me to deliver the moneys over to you ! 
We must do the best we can, for, at the last, we 
have no legal evidence of the extortion, and poor old 
Demetrius really signed away his birthright to the 
last cent ! 

“ It is only, then, fear of Weinstock’s confes- 
sion that forces them to disgorge ! And you can make 
it so easy for me ! If all is made over to you, it will 
appear as if you had bought back the household, and 
redeemed the jewels to aid your orphaned relative! 

“ And — she can safely be left to fancy that you are 
her benefactress ! The moneys are here all ready at 
my disposition, to be privately handed to you ! And 
all that you must do is to persuade Mademoiselle 
Kriloff to sign over all her claims — you being her 
tutrice, the whole thing is final ! But, the girl must 
know nothing! For, in any other form, the money- 
brokers would be left helplessly adjudged criminals! 
Telegraph me simply ‘ yes ’ if you will aid me, and so 
close the whole affair ! Act quickly — for there is one 
desperate remedy left to the usurers ! 

“ For fifty roubles, Weinstock could be easily poi- 
soned, or strangled in his prison, and the word ‘ sui- 
cide ’ scratched on the register of the civil prison ! 
Then they would all be safe — Marie would be impov- 
erished, and you would be left penniless with a help- 
less charge on your hands ! ” 

Xenie Karovitch sat long, alone, pondering over the 
banker’s letter} for there was a new prospect in life 
now opened to her. Fate had thrown the beautiful 
orphan into her hand as a bond slave ! 

It was the strangest turn of Fortune’s wheel ! The 
dark shadows had hidden the golden domes of the 
Kremlin before the desperate woman had made her 
choice of the ways ! 

“ With this secret, I can easily rule Kalomine,” she 
mused. Wraxine’s cold brutality had reminded her of 
her slight tenure upon the ambitious general ! 

“ He only wants to fill his pockets with the loot of 
this vastly important command ! He shall never know 


52 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

of this strange windfall ! And, as long as I have this 
gold, I am able to cope with either! Marie Kriloff 
must never know of this secret pact ! And Kalomine 
will never dare to tell her, for he is my slave ! ” 

The golden current seemed to flow toward her by 
fortune’s merest chance ! Xenie’s heart hardened as 
she recalled Wraxine’s bitter words — “ Gold alone 
rules the camp and court ! It gilds the Pope’s tiara, 
the Czar’s crown ; the car of Love rolls on golden 
wheels, and — nothing lasts but gold ! ” 

And so she dared not put away the glittering bribe 
which had drowned the last voice of a natural affec- 
tion. 

The earnest pleadings of Kalomine for her return 
recalled the danger of her situation. She resolutely 
telegraphed the word “ yes ” which bound Marie Kri- 
loff as a hostage of evil fortune, in absolute depend- 
ence upon the spendthrift beauty’s will. 

Four days later, Madame Karovitch started up, with 
a wildly beating heart, as General Wraxine’s adjutant 
presented himself before her, in campaign garb. 

“ Pardon, Excellence,” murmured the graceful offi- 
cer. “ I only bear this package and the general’s 
greetings. This letter will explain the sudden orders 
which will enforce the absence of Baron Wraxine until 
the new corps is concentrated at Rovno. The Gazette of 
next week will contain the official announcements, 
and, by that time, the First Division will be quietly 
concentrated at Rovno, without attracting the watch- 
ful enmity of the German War Office. The general is 
already at Warsaw, traveling incognito, by special 
train ; and I am bidden to take my leave and join him 
later, at Odessa.” 

Left alone, with impetuous haste, the Muscovite 
beauty tore open the pacquet. There, before her, lay 
the historic jewels which, hidden for a quarter of a 
century, had been the richest spoil of the venal sol- 
dier’s. rule in Circassia. 

All the vain coquetries of the dashing Delilah had 
never brought her brutal admirer to this access of gen- 
erosity, until the web of fate began to enmesh the girl 
whose surprised glances had fired a royal heart. 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 53 

There was a little scrawl, which told nothing but a 
secret to be kept from the whole world; the raison 
d’etre of General Baron Michel Wraxine’s brilliant 
advancement ; the sudden recognition of his incontest- 
able military merit ! 

“ The Lubomirski villa is yours — for a year from 
June 1st.” So ran the fateful words. “ You will 
bring your personal household only; all else is pro- 
vided. A thousand envious eyes are now fixed on me. 
Write nothing! Necker & Co., bankers, have an open 
account for you.” 

“ Victoria ! ” cried the happy woman, as she read 
the last lines. “ I am not to see you until you are es- 
tablished in your Rovno home. Apres, 9a roulera! 
Come to me there with the roses! You have nothing 
to say — no pledges to make ! ” 

Xenie Karovitch pressed down the swelling pride of 
her triumphant heart, as she rang for her maid. 

“ Have all ready ! We go back to St. Petersburg to- 
night,” said the woman, who now saw her pathway of 
triumph reaching out far into a glorious future. 

A new dehumanizing sense of power entered the 
busy brain of the triumphant schemer as she was rest- 
lessly watching, that night, station after station fly by, 
as the train sped along homeward from Moscow. 

The giant plot of Wraxine and his associates was 
now* clear to the Egeria of the new corps commander. 
For, it was Necker & Co. who would secretly handle 
the profitable intrigues of the enormous construction 
and supply contracts of a great, new military center. 

A la bonheur,” laughed Xenie. “ Kalomine will 
continue to handle the Grand Duke’s private money 
affairs, but Wraxine has slyly dug under all their 
mines! And all my secrets will be safe now, for the 
great house of Necker will be a bulwark to my pro- 
tector. For, they are to be the architects of our new 
fortunes.” 

The woman recognized Wraxine’s deep dexterity 
in avoiding the breath of scandal. 

The careful avoidance of herself until the service of 
the Czar should bring him to Rovno ; the iron grip of 
silence upon all relations with the grand ducal deus 


54 the shield of his honor. 

ex-machina, and the provision for an easy apprentice- 
ship of the simple-hearted Marie Kriloff to a life of 
luxury, was craftily done! 

“All this is as "it should be!” mused the noble- 
woman. “ She will drift along into her place in the 
game; after that she can play her cards for herself! 
She may not need my helping hand — pride and rivalry 
will carry her along fast enough ! ” 

A week after the return of Madame Karovitch from 
Moscow, the Gazette de Petersbourg duly announced 
the magnificent promotion of General Baron Michel 
Wraxine to the command of the IX Corps, and its 
new rendezvous was announced. 

Clubs, military circles, and financiers were all agog 
with the vast designs of the aspiring government, real- 
ized in the militarization of the Polish frontier and the 
frenzied railway construction. 

It had been a week of all the joys of a hidden Para- 
dise to Director General Alexandre Kalomine. For, 
with a tender solicitude, Madame Karovitch had gone 
over the whole family situation with the beautiful or- 
phan, now blooming under the artful stimulation of 
Madame Anykoff’s lavish hospitalities. 

“ Teach her to forget herself, my dear Barbe,” had 
been the velvety parting injunction of the artful Xenie. 
“ We live but once, and you and I know, ma chere 
amie, it is a case of ‘ apres nous — le deluge.’ 

“ I hope to see you another woman, Marie, under 
the roses of Rovno,” was Xenie’s summation of her 
finally imparted plans. 

“ I have secured the beautiful Lubomirski Villa! 
We leave here on June first, and there, in happy Vol- 
hvnia, you shall forget this dark winter city.” 

It had been easy to explain the necessity of the for- 
mal legal papers which the frank-hearted Marie signed 
without even glancing at them. 

The April days fled away, and a sense of restful grat- 
itude now filled the young orphan’s heart ! It was 
only from Madame Barbe Anykoff that Marie learned 
the self-abnegation of Madame Karovitch’s lavish pre- 
parations for the first acquaintance of the lonely girl 
with the glittering world of high life. 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 55 

But, there were undercurrents in the now busy life of 
the Maison Kriloff! While the orphan was going 
through a Cinderella process of preparation as to dress 
and ornament, suited to the modified mourning sea- 
son, Xenie Karovitch had learned to breathe easily! 
For, Counselor Matthias Weinstock had disappeared 
from Saint Petersburg upon the meaning intimation of 
his resentful principals. 

He was now a business agent of the money-brokers 
at Berlin, dispatched with meaning injunctions never 
to return to the Neva. 

And so, the hoard of Xenie Karovitch at the Impe- 
rial Bank was secure at last ! There were two hundred 
and fifty thousand roubles in the rentes of the govern- 
ment, locked up in the sealed iron deposit-box of the 
victorious intrigant. 

Single-hearted and loyal, Marie Kriloff was thankful 
and rested at heart to know that her own beloved fam- 
ily apartment had been guaranteed to her; that the 
whole movables of the Kriloff and Souvaroff family 
were safe and intact, and that her resolute kinswoman 
had rescued for her the historic jewels which had been 
the pride of the haughty ancestry whose undisturbed 
blood flowed in the veins of the dreamy hearted or- 
phan. 

Only one touch of womanly weakness rewarded 
the sleepless traitress who waited for Marie’s late 
awakening. 

It was when, with gentle craft, Madame Anykoff 
had led Marie to the mirror — where, robed like a 
young queen, all the jewels gleamed upon her exquis- 
ite figure. 

“ You shall be dressed like that, next week,” whis- 
pered Barbe Anykoff; “ for I shall give a dinner to the 
Grand Duke Anatole, and you must be the Queen of 
Snows, the Frozen Lily of the Neva.” 

With a vague alarm, Marie Kriloff gazed at herself; 
her lip trembled, and she fled away, for memory 
brought back to her the bold, masterful glances of the 
pitiless blue eyes! 

She had then, with the fine feminine defiance of 


56 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

nature, for the first time, learned that man had looked 
upon her, to find her fair. 

There were lurid secret chapters in Xenie Karo- 
vitch’s life as the May days waned and all was ready 
for the hegira to Rovno. 

Alexandre Kalomine had lived these last six 
weeks in a fever of Elysian delirium. Xenie, now se- 
cure in the absence of Michel Wraxine, had riveted up 
her empire upon the man who was now her abject 
slave. 

The convenient absences upon “ affairs ” had given 
the bold schemer a free rein ! She had risen above all 
pecuniary troubles; for she had deeply plunged into 
her open credit at Neckers. 

There were already thousands of artisans delving 
and hewing at Rovno in the great works of the new 
corps station. 

Railways, fortifications, storehouses, factories, bar- 
racks, and a dozen enterprises gave opportunities for 
the wholesale Russian robbery, at which the ordinary 
peculator pauses aghast! 

Under Michel Wraxine’s warrant, screened by the 
Grand Duke, in whose bosom an insane ardor now 
dwelt, the banker contractors were lavishing millions, 
of which golden stream the watchful Wraxine took 
more than Mosaic tithes. 

Kalomine and Xenie were both unwearied in their 
game of cross purposes. The crafty financier had de- 
ceived the woman who now ruled his every waking 
moment ! 

It had been only to tie her to his fortunes that he 
had so arranged the settlement with the vultures of the 
Kriloff estate, as to put the money, the rightful dower 
of the helpless orphan, into the hands of Xenie Karo- 
vitch. 

And now, a new life glowed in the bosom of the 
reckless woman gamester at Life’s fateful board. 

She felt all the stimulus of the mighty power of gold! 
Already, Wraxine, froth afar, had sent her the tiding 
of the coming extinction of her load of debts upon the 
country estate. 

“Keep faith with me— I will with you! When. you 


TU1£ SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


57 


come to me, your intendant shall give you the paid dis- 
charges of every debt you have in the world! ” 

The way of life now seemed such smooth sailing that 
the baroness gladly hailed the coming departure for 
Rovno. 

But one cloud lowered upon her horizon, and that 
was the pleading of Alexandre Kalomine to be a sum- 
mer guest of the Villa Lubomirski. 

“Alas! You know not what you ask,” sighed 
Xenie. “ Remember, that I am alone — only the or- 
phaned girl near me! There is the voice of the cruel 
world to stifle. You will soon find me in winter snows 
here again! ” 

It was on the eve of her departure for the Rovno rose 
bowers that the tortured man begged her to come to 
his princely Viborg villa, as his wife. 

And he fondly thought it was love shining in her 
glowing eyes, when she whispered: “Alexandre! I 
dare not trust myself to even these golden chains! 
You know not all that I may, one day, tell you! But," 
the serpent-minded woman laughingly cried, as she 
returned his kisses, “ if I do give my hand in marriage, 
it will be to you alone, and that, I swear! ” 

She trembled with delight at the princely gifts which 
he showered upon her, and yet a cold, mortal fear of 
Wraxine held 'her back! 

“ He would surely kill me,” she shiveringly said. 
“ Even though he loves me not! it is his fancy that I 
should be his tyrant, dupe, and slave! ” 

With the finest self-protective art, it was Xenie’s 
master stroke to meet, as if, by social hazard, the 
Grand Duke Anatole, at the princely dinner given by 
Madame Barbe Anykoff on the last night of their stay 
in Petersburg. 

The nightingales were now calling in the southern 
woods, and the secretly arranged message at Rovno 
was awaiting the velvet-eyed chatelaine. 

It was well veiled — the insidious approach of the 
ardent princeling — for, Marie Kriloff, wooed along 
into a newly unfolding life, standing there under the 
golden wax lights, merely opened her dreaming eyes in 


58 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


a vague wonder, as the Grand Duke kissed her jeweled 
fingers : 

“ Farewell! ” he softly said. “ A soldier’s farewell — 
till we crown you queen among the roses at Rovno.” 

“ She will need no leading,” mused Xenie, watching 
the girl, splendid in her jewels, her cheeks lit up with 
a new-born pride. “ She will come under the world’s 
yoke — like the rest! ” 


CHAPTER IV. 

IN GOLDEN FETTERS. 

It had been a merry parting from the few friends 
who saw the train glide away from the crowded sta- 
tion, and Xenie Karovitch sighed in a happy relief 
when the lights of the Neva faded away behind her! 

In the long, seven-hundred-mile trip to Wilna, Du- 
naburg, and Rovno, the astute baroness would have 
ample leisure to arrange her future social programme. 
The fates had been unduly kind to the woman now 
fighting for fortune within her last citadel of * life. 
There was not a telltale whisper of her secret composi- 
tion with the usurers who had sucked the life-blood of 
Demetrius Kriloff. 

Whatever private pledges Michel Wraxine had 
given to the Grand Duke, they were all unknown to 
Xenie. And it was well, for Wraxine, her tyrant, was 
of a different world to Kalomine, her unconscious 
dupe. The one, a military zealot, a mad sportsman, 
a member of the glittering imperial staff, was a shining 
light in the highest Russian social coteries ; the other, 
secretive, luxurious, a man of the cabinet, lived in 
an atmosphere of guarded mystery. 

For, a confidant of the highest august personages, 
the chosen intimate of the powerful cabinet minis- 
ters, Alexandre Kalomine always moved “ in a mys- 
t^ ’ous way, his wonders to perform.” 

S^ret’y backed by other great moneyed men, he 
was the head of a powerful financial coterie which al- 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 59 

ways fought the court and military cabals in an un- 
ending triangular duel. 

It was true that General Wraxine and the director of 
the Imperial Bank often met as friendly enemies over 
the green cloth of the yacht club, for both were invet- 
erate gamesters ; but there, only the blind goddess For- 
tuna ruled — and a ceremonial politeness veiled the 
universal hatred of all high-class Russians for the 
money autocrat. 

Noble, beauty, official, courtier, general, even those 
of the imperial blood, feared the secret junta of Peters- 
burg bankers, who were necessarily exempt from all 
police espionage. 

There was ever the steel hand hidden under the vel- 
vet glove — and, the warring capitalists were always 
banded together like Ukraine wolves, in the defense of 
their own order ! And, at any moment, these sons of 
Mammon could throttle the imperial policy, halt ar- 
mies, arrest great public works, and even cut off the 
means of social display or official splendor. 

Leaning back on her cushions, Xenie Karovitch se- 
cretly watched the beautiful orphan. “ I can find out 
her real character now,” the happy intrigante mused, 
“ for, all my bridges are burned behind me ! She is 
isolated from all her old associations, and the glow of 
pleasure will soon melt the icy reserve of her ‘ arrested 
development/ ” 

Sly and artful. Xenie Karovitch had left Elia and 
Marie Alexandrowna as guardians of the vast apart- 
ments in the Maison Kriloff! “There is no one to 
babble,” was Xenie’s quick judgment. Her own maid 
was a devoted peasant woman, brought up under her 
own eyes, and bred into that habitual luxury which had 
been Xenie Karovitch’s second life since she had 
raised her own social pennon of “ No surrender.” 

“ I can watch her night and day, for the other serv- 
ants are Wraxine’s own creatures, and so, there is 
no danger of awkwardness.” 

With a fine dissimulation, the Grand Duke’s only no- 
tice of the departure of the object of his secret pur- 
suit had been three exquisite bouquets, delivered by his 
confidential Swiss to Madame Anykoff, Excellence 


6o 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


Karovitch, and the beautiful Marie, at the station. 

The universal chivalry of the Russian character ex- 
plained the general compliment, and yet, Xenie knew 
that Marie’s superb white rosebuds must have been 
specially ordered on from San Remo, by telegraph. 

For the ice on the Neva had lingered late, and the 
trees in the great Summer Garden had just shed their 
winter wraps of twisted straw. 

Besides cutting off all possible meddling with her 
dangerous charge, Xenie Karovitch had arranged for 
a visit incognito to Alexandre Kalomine’s jewel-box 
villa in Finland. It had all been so deftly arranged! 

Madame Barbe Anykoff was to come in August, 
and be the chatelaine of the Villa Lubomirski, while 
Xenie could steal away to Viborg, and leave Marie 
Kriloff to feel herself free and untrammeled in the 
brilliant summer life of Rovno. 

In return for the entree to the golden summer life 
of the Volhynian villa, Barbe Anykoff had frankly pre- 
pared the unsuspicious Marie for a complete subserv- 
iency to her generous aunt, now the good fairy of the 
girl’s brightening dreams. 

Madame Anykoff, the widow of a general who had 
left a fair estate and a substantial pension, failed not to 
let Marie feel the full measure of her obligations to the 
seemingly generous Aunt Xenie. 

“ To have rescued your magnificent jewels; to have 
recovered your entire family personal property from 
these wretches ; to have secured you a permanent home 
in the Maison Kriloff, it has been, indeed, a marvel- 
ous campaign. If Demetrius had but listened to her, 
you would not have been left, dowerless and depend- 
ent, only upon your aunt’s further bounty ! Her kind- 
ness links you to her side with golden fetters ! Never 
forget that you look to her alone for your future, for 
fortune, and for your social career.” 

And Barbe Anykoff’s work had been well done! 
For Marie Kriloff now well knew that, while some- 
thing had been saved from the wreck of the family for- 
tunes, that it was to Xenie Karovitch she owed all the 
daily comforts of her brightened life — the splendid out* 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


6l 


fitting which had been forced upon her, and the daily 
bread, even if broken by a loving hand. 

For the sacred seventeen roubles, the last vestige 
of her departed father’s wasted fortune, still remained 
untouched, as a sad reminder of his unfaithful steward- 
ship. 

On this softening night of the awakening summer, 
as the train sped on through the fragrant birch forests, 
the voices of the woods, in mystic murmurs, were her- 
alding in the magical season which brings back bud, 
leaf, and blossom to the tree, the flowers to the 
meadow, the fragrance of royal-hearted summer to the 
dreamy forest, and the wild tumult of life’s reawaken- 
ing to the heart of man and maid. 

Marie was an embodied vision of grace and beauty 
as she leaned back, a distinguished figure in her pearl- 
gray traveling dress, the soft, light, silver-fox furs 
framing her exquisite face. Xenie secretly contem- 
plated her work with a thrill of pride. “ Laissez faire,” 
she murmured to herself, as she nestled deeper in her 
own cushions. “ She will be a queen, my silent pupil ! 
The soul of the rose will soon steal into her tranquil 
bosom, and she will come into her kingdom, and, in 
the great game of life, win or lose, she will have walked 
the pathway of womanhood — to live and love — to live 
and be beloved ! ” 

And vet, the world-hardened beauty’s inmost heart’s 
core thrilled with conscious shame when Marie leaned 
over to her, and, kissing her brows lightly, murmured : 
“ You are so good to me! I owe all to you — and I 
shall never forget you ! ” 

The varying scenes of the two days’ gliding pano- 
rama brought the sparkling light of joy to Marie Kri- 
ioff’s eyes. 

As they sped on through the leafy Volhynian wood- 
lands, past lake! and town, flashing green meadows now 
starred with early flowers, greeted them; the lowing 
of kine sounded softly on the breeze, and the mantle 
of spring, unfolding, as they were whirled southward, 
showed beneath its fleecy folds the exquisite bosom of 
summer, ardent and glowing. 

There was the light of wonderment in Marie Kri- 


62 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


loff’s eyes as the train, rounding many beautiful vistas, 
drew up where Rovno nestles, by its winding river in 
the rich Volhynian plains, so loved by the proud old 
Polish nobility. 

There was the white city of a thousand conical tents, 
sweeping far around the old town, filling the triune 
valleys, where the copper roofs gleamed like gold in 
the evening sun ; the grouped cupolas of the churches 
rose, surmounted with gilded crosses, and the sweet, 
thrilling sound of martial music was wafted, in soft- 
ened echoes, on the evening breeze. 

All around was the lavish fertility of a generous na- 
ture, and thatched farmhouse and pretty villa smiled in 
peace and generous contentment. 

“ Beautiful ! beautiful ! ” exclaimed Marie Kriloff, as 
her eyes rested on the proud old Chateau de Lubo- 
mirski, rising on a stately mound, with its velvet lawn 
sloping to ’the river encircling the romantic old castle 
on three sides. 

“ Beautiful ! ” involuntarily echoed a score of gallant 
officers, raising their hats as Excellence Marie Kriloff 
demurely followed Xenie to the waiting carriage. The 
girl’s witching loveliness had cast a spell upon the 
chivalric young soldiers, who had found excuses to 
throng the railway station. 

For the splendid equipage, the magnificent, peerless, 
Orloff trotters, and the two liveried servants had 
brought Colonel Tcherchinsky, the chef d’etat major, 
to welcome Madame Karovitch to her new summer 
abode. 

All the preux chevaliers knew the dark-eyed Venus 
Victrix — for the festivities at Tiflis had proved Xenie 
Karovitch’s title to the scepter. 

And the glittering general staff, transferred to the 
new corps in formation, wondered at the touching 
beauty of the stately girl who passed, with downcast 
eyes, between the ranks of her stranger admirers. 

To Marie, whose longest excursion had been the 
environs of St. Petersburg, this fair, free land of old 
Poland, glowing in sunshine, a land of witching moon- 
light and overhanging silver stars, seemed to be a fairy 
world — an Elysium. 


THE SHIELD OF IIIS HONOR. 


63 


“ With His Excellency’s compliments,” said the 
courtly Colonel Tcherchinsky, as he handed the la- 
dies the first fruits of their suzerainty ! “ The roses of 

Rovno bloom only for you ! ” 

In martial fashion, the chief of staff rode beside their 
carriage until the vehicle passed between the lodge 
gates of the beautifully bowered summer villa now the 
residence of the Counts of Lubomirski. 

The drive for three-quarters of a mile was through 
long avenues filled with the patient, plodding gray 
battalions, their twinkling bayonets shining over the 
blue eyes and yellow locks of the soldiery. 

It was a wonder world to Baroness Marie, this med- 
ley of life in the lanes of the old city now circled with 
its huge camps. 

Lean, brown Cossack cavalry, wild-eved Circassians 
of noble mien, their rich uniforms gleaming with 
silver; bearded artillerymen in leather jerkins; dash- 
ing lancers — and, riding in knots, the splendid officers, 
whose swords were ready to leap from the scabbard 
at the nod of the White Czar. 

Marie never heard the whispered adieu of the chief 
of staff as they passed between the statues crowning 
the lodge gates of the villa. “ The General greets you, 
and he will be here in a fortnight to receive his formal 
command at the hands of the Grand Duke! I have 
every order concerning your comfort ! There will be 
a guard of honor always posted at the villa ! ” 

Glowing with triumph, Xenie Karovitch nodded as 
the two sentinels saluted, and keenly watched Marie 
while the carriage wound around and around the mag- 
nificent ground of fifty acres which surrounded the Lu- 
bomirski villa. 

The southeast exposure of the superb gardens was 
sheltered by rolling hills, and the enchanting prospect 
of the whole river valley to the north, west, and south, 
was unrolled before them. 

The old city lay below them, to the east, the vast 
camp was unrolled in a stern, martial pageant, and 
every turn of the winding carriage road disclosed some 
delicious new vista. 

The air of evening was laden with the rich breath of 


64 the shield of his honor, 

the royal gardens, and the great, rambling, modern 
villa stretched out its hospitable arms and wings, 
among a labyrinth of dells, groves, and lawns. The 
plashing murmur of water mingled with the soft gur- 
gling cooing of the forest birds. 

Here, on this romantic hillside, the Polish Princes 
Lubomirski, in modern days, had builded this embow- 
ered paradise, after the White Eagle was furled for- 
ever, and the great ruined castle below was left to its 
entourage of the town, all of whose native-born citi- 
zens had been serfs to the proud Polish family. 

Napoleon had marshaled kings on the velvet sward 
before the old chateau below, in 1807, and now, after 
the terrific scenes of the Moscow campaign, and the 
wild wars of the Polish insurrection, the old chateau 
dreamed in the dying sunlight, deserted by all but a 
faithful family of retainers burrowing in its mossy 
basements. 

“ It is an earthly paradise,” murmured Marie, as she 
lightly sprang out upon the broad vfcranda, where 
Madame Karovitch’s own intendant stood awaiting 
her. He was a legacy of her old state, before her visits 
to Paris, her winters on the Riviera, and her battles at 
Monte Carlo had swept estate after estate into the 
hands of the money-lenders. 

A two years’ absence of the widowed Prince Lubo- 
mirski, while making a tour of the world with two love- 
ly daughters, had enabled the new corps commander 
to secure the use of the only modern residence within 
a hundred square miles. 

Cosmopolitan nobles, and of the strictest “ high- 
life ” school, the Lubomirskis had filled the rambling 
villa with every charm of the luxurious later life of this 
century of gold. 

And yet, in the years since the end of the reign of 
“ fire and sword,” they had garnered into the jewel-box 
villa vast stores of the hidden treasures of the old Po- 
lish families, now scattered as exiles over the world, or 
sprinkled through foreign armies, with a silent con- 
tingent in Siberia’s gloomy stockades. 

The vast majority, gone before, were sleeping quiet- 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 65 

ly in that great national graveyard which is cotermi- 
nous with vanished Poland. 

To Marie Kriloff, whose uneventful life had been 
dreamed away in the depressing household of the old 
scholar, this realm of modern luxury seemed a king’s 
palace. 

Before the bugles of the encircling camp had sound- 
ed “ taps,” the young baroness had peeped into every 
fairy nook of the splendid villa. 

But one disturbing thought came to vex her ! When 
the dinner was served, in a state which made Marie 
wonder, a sudden query flashed across her mind. 
“ Whence all this display, the evidence of a costly 
luxury ? ” 

There was a grave submission on the face of General 
Wraxine’s maitre d’hote!, the footmen were of his own 
household, and the stable lackeys had seen Madame 
Karovitch’s bewitching face often at Tiflis. 

And, fearing the wrath of their stern master, they 
made no sign save that of implicit obedience. 

The orphan stifled the quest:’on which trembled on 
her tongue when she recalled the admonitions of the 
prudent Madame Anvkoff. “ I am only a dependent 
upon Xenie’s bounty,” mused the startled girl, “ and 
fettered to her by the golden chains of a slavish grat- 
itude.” 

The perfect social inexperience of the young beauty 
was a protection to Madame Karovitch in her veiled 
designs, and a needed one; for, already, at the glit- 
tering mess tables of the patrician officers of the corps 
the wine was quaffed in a toast to the “ Unknown 
Oueen of Roses.” 

As for Madame Karovitch, they smiled in silence 
and passed the question, for all dreaded the iron dis- 
ciplinarian who held them as hounds in the leash ! 

One single awkward affront, and the tiger-hearted 
general who was the Grand Duke Anatole’s “ other 
soul ” could send them on a ten years’ frontier exile 
of service in Siberian outposts, or on the yeasty shores 
of Saghalien. 

But, when the moon sailed high over the slumbering 
camp and the sleeping city, Marie was wandering in 


66 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


golden dreams, when she was awakened by the exqui- 
site serenade under her windows, the “ music in the 
silent night, which, when the burthened air is spent, 
bequeaths to memory its delight.” 

Stealing to the vine-clad window, she watched the 
lurid glow of a hundred flaming torches, where, by 
their martial light, the sturdy, ranked soldiers sang the 
quaint and thrilling regimental songs to whose proud 
accent the bravest of Russia have died for the Czar on 
a hundred fields. 

The young officers eagerly divided the spoil of the 
rain of roses which the “ Unknown Beauty ” timidly 
dropped among them, and, an hour later, she bowed, 
in a sudden confusion, at the head of the supper table, 
when the room rang with the courtly welcome of the 
assembled cavaliers. 

Marie Kriloff’s heart beat with new impulses, and a 
strange fire thrilled her stilled blood as she laid her 
tired and happy head down upon her pillow. 

Led by loving hands into a land of roses, life seemed 
all fair before her, and her womanly heart beat a sym- 
pathetic refrain to the music wafted back in the sum- 
mer night as the stalwart soldiers marched down 
through the town, their ringing chorus dying away on 
the softly murmuring night breezes. 

A week ran away. Tike the fleeting visions of a happy 
dream ! A reflect of the summer roses now shone on 
the young patrician’s cheek ; there were all the quaint 
mysteries of Russian peasant life, the varied pageants 
of the growing camp ; the projected riding and hunt- 
ing excursions ; the visits to the few old feudal manors 
still spared from Russian rapacity or war’s iron heel. 

There was a murmur of quickened life in the thrill- 
ing flush of the summer nights, when the very sound 
of the growing corn could almost be heard, so rich- 
ly laden was the crystal air with light and life. 

And, with a rare decision, the cautious Xenie Karo- 
vitch saw this human flower unfolding, leaf by leaf, 
petal by petal, into the peerless bloom of her matchless 
beauty. 

As light footed as the leopard, Xenie Karoviteh fol- 
lowed the steps of her lovely charge. There was a dig- 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. by 

nity in the veiled retirement of the villa, the guard of 
honor, the daily ceremonial call of the chief of staff, 
which kept all the frantic Romeos of the great assem- 
bling corps at bay. 

Though every eye followed the superb carriage 
wherein Marie gleamed — a pearl by the side of the 
dashing Excellence Xenie — the Oueen of Roses was 
left to her books and music, her birds and flowers, and 
the daily discovery of new treasures in the dainty villa. 

And, even now, all the noble officers of the Rovno 
station knew that Baroness Marie Kriloff was still ex- 
cluded by her mourning from the summer revels, and 
that, bevond the gravest public ceremonies, that she 
would be hidden away in that hillside garden to which 
all eyes turned. 

Thousand-tongued Rumor was already busied with 
her supposed wealth, her manifold charms, and all the 
attraction of mystery was added to the halo of the Kri- 
loff and Souvaroff lineage. 

The happiest day of Baroness Marie’s life was the 
sparkling morning when she first mounted the match- 
less horse which a professional woman trainer had ex- 
ercised for a month on the secluded roads around 
Rovno. 

“ It is yours, Marie,” simply said the secretly de- 
lighted Xenie, when the high-spirited girl threw her 
arms around the good fairy’s neck. “ I do not wish 
you, while barred from feast and ball, from all our gay- 
est summer life, to grow weary of. vour quiet life.” 

The sister of a soldier, and of a lineage of dauntless 
personal courage, Marie Kriloff had the true Russian 
hand with a horse. 

And — ever mindful of the jealous eyes of the lesser 
ladies of the official household — no man but grizzled, 
old Colonel Tcherchinsky had ridden by the side of 
the black Orloff with the silver star, as Marie went out 
on riding forays with Xenie — herself a picture of sup- 
ple grace, on a matchless chestnut. 

It was two days after the arrival of Baron General 
Michel Wraxine when the twenty thousand men of the 
splendid corps passed in a stately review before the 
Grand Duke Anatole and his glittering staff. 


68 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

The quiet meeting between Xenie and the general, 
at the railway clubhouse, now exclusively reserved 
for the general’s own private headquarters, was never 
known, either to the watchful prince or the orphan 
beauty; for the maitre d’hotel, silent and ever on 
guard, was Wraxine’s sleepless representative in the 
paradise which he had gathered around the woman 
who was his secret partner in the desperate game of 
controlling the Grand Duke’s destiny. 

After the embattled host had swept bv, Marie Kri- 
lofFs bosom was thrilled with a first glow of conscious 
pride when the Grand Duke’s cortege respectfully halt- 
ed as the princely inspector-general rode up to her car- 
riage. 

Only General Baron Wraxine accompanied His 
Highness, as the imperial representative kissed the 
girl’s trembling hand. 

When the watchful Xenie presented the mighty 
corps commander, all that Marie saw was the stern, 
soldiery face, the gleaming, round, black, Tartar eyes, 
and the jeweled stars and orders on his broad breast. 

“ W e shall try and make you happy here in our sol- 
diers’ camp” said the general to the elated girl, who 
now saw a hundred envious women gazing upon her 
uncontested social victory. 

“ If you desire anything, you must tell me, when I 
have the honor to accept Madame Karovitch’s din- 
ner,” gayly said the Grand Duke, leaping on his horse 
with the grace of a true soldier. 

“ And, remember, General Wraxine has my orders 
to carry out your wishes ; he only command? the corps ; 
I command him ; and you. Excellence Marie, command 
us both ! ” 

When the two ladies drove home under a gallant 
escort, Marie Kriloff’s eyes were soft and dreamy. 
Her hands were crossed upon an exquisite bouquet of 
white roses, which had been sent with the compliments 
of the Czar’s blood-kinsman. 

“ I owe all this to you ! ” cried Marie, in a frenzy o/ 
delight, when the victorious Xenie Karovitch em- 
braced her protege as they reached the villa. 

Her social campaign had passed the dangerous 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 69 

point now ! The seal of precedence had been set upon 
them, and the coming dinner was the final stamp of 
the undisputed queenship of the Volhynian province. 

There was but one queen among the roses of Rovno, 
and into Marie KrilofFs heart was unconsciously steal- 
ing the pride of life, and the growing luxury of her 
daily life fitted her now as if she were the daughter of 
Caesar. And so, she began to drift out on the sea of 
pleasure, with her eves veiled to all save the roses in 
her path ! As beautiful as a dream, as unsuspicious as 
a child ! 

Four days later, the Villa Lubomirski was the scene 
of a superb fete. The concealed hand of the corps 
commander was the active agent in the gala decora- 
tions of the villa and the gardens. 

The great marquee where the general exercised his 
official command was deserted, and over the villa 
proudly floated the yellow imperial family flag, with 
the double-headed black eagle, the ensign which de- 
noted the presence of a member of the imperial family. 

The grounds were filled with a splendid guard of 
honor, a company of the haughty Tcherkess of the 
guard, a company of lancers in their blue and silver, 
a platoon of picturesque Cossacks patrolled each /road 
around the villa gardens, and a troop of the Chevalier 
Garde, knightly in cuirasses and silver-crested helmets, 
were ranged upon the broad veranda. 

All the patricians of the camp, and the cercle de no- 
blesse knew that, besides the Grand Duke and General 
Baron Wraxine, only her Serene Highness Princess 
Natalie Vronsky had assisted at the dinner, where the 
imperial guest first divided bread and salt with Baron- 
ess Xenie Karovitch. 

The superb band of the Cuirassiers of the Guard 
breathed out the wildly heroic martial music, in the 
rose copses under the windows when the soft voice of 
the concealed orchestra within had ceased to intone the 
songs of “ love and the pain of love.” 

With an artful craft, Michel Wraxine had seized 
upon the presence of that princely bird of passage, the 
very aristocrat of the haughty higher noblesse, Prin- 
cess Natalie Vronsky, whose unnumbered estates 


70 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


stretched from the Urals to the blue Galician moun- 
tains and the misty Hungarian hills. 

And so, it was this world-famous beauty who 
watched in silence at the dinner the stately orphan, 
robed in white silk, with her swan-like neck graced 
with the Souvaroff pearls. 

A knot of the Grand Duke’s white roses, alone, 
graced the sculptured bosom. 

“ She is too beautiful to be happy,” mused the deb- 
onnair princess. “ Such star-like eyes were surely 
born for sorrow’s clouds. She is a lonely beauty, 
walking hand in hand with the fatal curse of some un- 
happy love ! ” 

Marie Kriloff moved as in a dream, her startled soul 
steeped in all the splendors of the night, the unspoken 
homage of the throng awing her to a proud reserve. 

For, when the Russian national hymn announced 
the toast to the Czar, the grand evening reception in 
honor of the Princess Vronsky brought to the Villa 
Lubomirski all the higher officers of the corps. 

The whole country noblesse within a hundred miles 
rallied, and also the defiant mutine beauties of the fem- 
inine military aristocracy, who had gathered at the 
great summer camp. 

The thousand Chinese lanterns in the grounds lit up 
wondering beauties, sighing under the pleading of 
scores of cavaliers whose semi-barbaric richness of ap- 
parel proved the vast sweep of the Czar’s iron 
truncheon. 

It was at the witching hour of midnight when the 
guests were all marshaled on the emerald lawn before 
the villa, and then, at the signal of a golden rocket, 
the grand old ruined Chateau de Lubomirski, lying be- 
low them in the dreaming valley where the whispering 
river ran among its reeds, leaped out, in lines of living 
light, a glittering romance of the old. 

Two thousand torchmen, disposed on every line of 
the splendid old Polish stronghold, had ignited their 
gleaming tapers at the fiery signal. 

And then, as the bands struck up a soft adieu, the 
Grand Duke Anatole, standing between la Princesse 
Vronsky and the Pearl Queen, turned to the trium- 


THE SHIELD OF HLS HONOR. 7 1 

phant Baron Wraxine. “Mon Gener.al, on ne peut 
mieux! Votre fete est vraiment magnifique, sans pa- 
reil ! C’est un soir de Haroun al Raschid.” 

Then, bending low over the hand of the radiant 
hostess, the Grand Duke kissed the slender fingers of 
Madame Karovitch. “ I shall soon have my revenge ! 
I shall borrow the old chateau, and leave the camp, 
pour le moment, for I am a houseless prince, vowed, as 
you know, to tent life and the ceaseless journeys of the 
service of the Emperor. This is your fete, and I will 
return it in kind ! ” 

When the last escort had clattered away; when the 
timid nightingales began their plaint once more in the 
jasmine beneath her windows, Marie Kriloff sat 
dreaming there in her boudoir, her whole being thrilled 
with the magnificence of the night’s pageant. 

She had stolen away from Xenie to still the soft tu- 
mult in her heart. 

For one secret — the first of her yet untroubled heart 
life — she had not dared to share with her benefactress. 

ft was when she had made the tour of the grounds 
with the Grand Duke that the young prince seized 
upon the shade of the friendly rose arbor to ask if there 
were aught in which he might serve the Pearl Queen ! 

Marie’s timid denial brought a meaning smile to his 
lips ! 

“ Remember, you may ask anything of me. Your 
brother, Captain Kriloff, died for our house, as the 
leader of the desperate assault at Geok Tepe! And 
your brother’s sister shall not ask a favor in vain ! ” 

“ What more could heart desire ? ” mused the happy 
girl, as she fell into the rosy dreams of youth and in- 
nocence. This summer of roses seemed to be the very 
flower of her life, and she now moved in a world to 
which her old life seemed to be but a dark background 
of unforgotten sorrows, a round of dull prison days. 

The days swept on into weeks, and, debarred by the 
etiquette of mourning, Marie Kriloff ’s only loneliness 
was on the nights when Xenie Karovitch led the state- 
ly minuet or witched all beholders in the wild mazurka 
with General Baron Michel Wraxine as her only part- 
ner. 


72 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


Utterly unsuspicious, while joining the forays of the 
Riding Club of the Ladies of the Corps, Marie, bound- 
ing along on the fleet-footed Selim, never knew of the 
long tete-a-tetes of the artful Xenie with the Baron 
Wraxine at his superb personal headquarters. 

There was a private entrance to the magnificent 
mansion in the village, reached through its semi-public 
gardens, and the existence of which not even the cap- 
tain of Wraxine’s. bodyguard had ever dreamed. 

But, the maitre d’hotel, who always stood, gravely 
mute, behind Baroness Xenie’s chair at the villa, knew 
who had handed her the key of the well-hidden portal. 

The Grand Duke was a shooting star, his range from 
Petersburg to Odessa, from Warsaw to Moscow 
and Orenburg, being covered by his special train, 
which bore him along with lightning speed on the mys- 
terious mandates of the mighty Czar ! 

And yet, Marie Krilofl was vaguely conscious that 
she was not forgotten, for, thrice a week, the same cou- 
rier brought the white roses of San Remo to the Pearl 
Queen. 

. “ He must have loved my brother,” dreamily said 
Marie, who was lost now in the steady swing of the 
luxury-haunted days. 

She had learned to admire the fiery activity of Gen- 
eral Wraxine. 

From dawn till dark, the indefatigable commander 
was in the saddle. The blazing sun of high summer 
was now turning the waving billows of wheat to gold, 
and the plains were flecked with the blood-red poppv 
far and wide. 

But the pageantry of mimic war went on ! The air 
thrilled to the singing bugles ; there were great, gray 
squares of glinting bayonets, on upland and plain ; 
charging squadrons wheeled under the arching sabers ; 
the wild artillery careered along in clouds of sulphury 
smoke wreaths, and the hundred-colored uniforms 
gleamed for miles around the rose park. 

In the old city, the streets were blocked up with 
huge trains; raw. red forts leaped out of the green, a 
grim girdle of intricate geometry ; thousands of mou- 
jiks toiled upon the vast yellow barracks, and great 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 73 

casernes were now* making a veritable stronghold of 
the sleepy Volhynian town. 

And, while forges blazed by night and day ; while 
hundreds of anvils rang; while bridge and factory, 
huge bakery and storehouse ; new railway lines and im- 
mense stables, spread over miles of the vicinity ; fol- 
lowed by his glittering staff, Michel Wraxine galloped 
here and there, the one directing mind of the great 
community under the fluttering war flags. 

Courteous, chivalric, and unwearied in kindness, 
the artful general had never broken in upon Marie 
Kriloffs privacy, other than to anticipate her every 
wish, when he could in any wav divine the orphan’s 
timid preferences. 

It all seemed to Marie like the “ baseless fabric of a 
dream,” which would some day roll away and leave 
her alone, a self-compelled prisoner in the darkened 
apartment on the dreary Neva, her horizon bounded 
again bv the glimpses of the Place Michel, or the vary- 
ing incidents of the crowds pouring along under her 
lonely window-seat ! 

And yet, into her every fiber the luxury of power, of 
splendor, of all that gold brings, had silently eaten 
as the fever of the Maremma poisons the blood of the 
Tuscan peasantry. 

Marie Kriloff’s education had for its range only the 
graceful generalities of the Catherine Institute, the lan- 
guages, and graces, music, and an emasculated course 
of belles lettres. 

Utterly ignorant of the hard world, she had been 
denied a mother’s care, the healthful contact of house- 
hold affection, and her high-spirited nature had passed 
by the meaner arts of the coquetry and duplicity bred 
by the stifling moral atmosphere of the Russian salon ! 

And now, a -woman in heart, soul, and pulse, she 
drifted into the breakers of life with only a child’s per- 
ceptions ! 

It had never occurred to her to ask for the reason of 
Xenie Karovitch’s influence over the fiery Wraxine. 
She questioned not the general’s singular interest in 
herself, nor the gracious Grand Duke’s suppressed ar- 
dor ! Removed by her stately mourning from the wild 


74 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


whirl of dashing dejeuners, brilliant balls, and “ petit 
diners/’ where the mask was dropped, she stood, a 
white-winged angel, on the brink of the dark tide of 
rose-red love and intrigue sweeping around her, and 
walked blindfold among the temptations of the seeth- 
ing Vanity Fair. 

And Fate had strangely aided her childlike blindness ; 
for, a dozen secret agents were now hovering around 
the great human hive of Rovno — the men who were the 
spies and go-betweens of the mightv bankers, Necker 
& Co. 

General Baron Michel Wraxine bore a restless heart 
in his bosom ! Though he was reaping a golden har- 
vest by pouring the stream of fortune into the hands 
of his confederates, he shuddered, at night, to dream 
of that unspoken compact with the Grand Duke ! 

Though Xenie’s annoying debts were now all paid, 
though he had discharged all his own long arrears, and 
even had heaped up a secret golden hoard — for, he rig- 
orously exacted the golden tribute for each tacit in- 
famy — he feared the sudden resentment of the imperial 
intrigant. 

There was a hungry glance in the Grand Duke Ana- 
tole’s eyes as he followed Marie Kriloflf’s matchless 
form. 

Once, leaning down from his horse, the Grand Duke 
had whispered to the general : “ When shall I hear 

the wedding bells? ” 

With a frightened gasp, Wraxine had only an- 
swered : “ She is an orphan child, yet in mourning ! ” 

And so, when the Field Marshal Grand Duke Ana- 
tole had bade adieu to Marie, as he was spirited away 
to the Caucasus on a secret, lightning quest, he had 
only murmured to her: “ We will meet again on the 
Neva, surely, for you must be at court this winter! ” 

The wondering girl never knew of the unending, 
guilty quarrels of the general and the now puzzled Bar- 
oness Xenie. 

“ T may be relieved at any time,” growled Wraxine. 
“ I see no progress yet in your regard ! Let but the 
blow fall ; though I may be sent to dream out mv life 
watching a horde of Siberian convicts, you, miladi, 


v the shield of his honor. 75 

will fall back into the tortures of poverty, obscurity, 
and the fangs of these women over whom you lord it 
now.” 

True to herself in all her complicated treason of life, 
Xenie Karovitch suddenly resolved to let her haughty 
tyrant feel the pangs of absence and an unnamed 
jealousy. 

It was in the early days of August that she sped 
away to keep her tryst with Kalomine in the land of 
the silvery Finnish lakes. 

“ Mon ami,” she whispered warningly to the fretful 
Michel Wraxine, “remember, Barbe Anykoff will be 
the faithful guardian of Marie here at the Villa Lu- 
bomirski. The Grand Duke may return. You will 
have daily access to my home ! One awkward step, 
one lifting of the veil, and you will seal your own ruin ! 
The Grand Duke may alarm her with a single look. 
There’s a high soul, an unexplored passion, a heart 
brave, quand meme, in that girl’s bosom. Golden fet- 
ters will not hold her ! I may lead her up to the altar 
later, to meet you there willingly. Beware of the 
heavy band ! ” 

And so, rejoicing in her secretly acquired double 
fortune, Xenie left him puzzled. 


CHAPTER V. 

THE BAI. DE NOBLESSE AN ADDITION TO THE STAFF. 

When Marie Kriloff welcomed the arrival of the 
bright-hearted Madame Barbe Anykoff, she little 
dreamed of the real purpose of the Baroness Xenie’s 
visit to St. Petersburg. 

Wraxine’s velvet-eyed confederate had given to 
Madame Anykoff those secret injunctions regarding 
the young beauty which were worthy of a woman 
“ qui connait bien son Russie.” 

And Xenie feared not to leave the vivacious widow 
in close proximity to General Wraxine. 

She herself had become absolutely necessary to the. 


76 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

corps commander by the secret commerce with the 
e vents of the speculating Neckers. 

She had a knowledge of all his corruption in the 
gieat contracts, now mounting high in the millions of 
roubles. 

“ I can not trust to his love, but only to his living 
fear of losing the lucrative corps command/’ she 
mused. “ And, as for Marie ” — the intrigant rightly 
judged — “ she is safe, for both Wraxine and the Grand 
Duke would fear Barbe’s unerring blue eyes, laughing 
though they be! She is one of the sterling old Boyar 
noblesse, and no slavish worshiper of the Romanoffs.” 

With a keen sagacity, Xenie had sent her maid on, a 
day before, to St. Petersburg to inspect the Kriloff 
menage, and so, she was unwatched as she happily 
made her way back to the Neva to meet the love- 
haunted Kalomine. 

A telegram from Wilna caused the Director General 
of the Imperial Bank to steal away to Viborg, and 
leave the coast clear for a coup d’audace which Wrax- 
ine’s gloomy forebodings had forced upon her. 

She was carefully guarded by her intendant only, as 
she thought, with a glow of satisfaction of the lightly- 
won hundred and fifty thousand roubles, which she 
had taken with her in her jewel-case. 

“ There is always a line of retreat open to the good 
general,” she pondered, and yet, in some unexplained 
way, she began to fear a disaster in the career of the 
bold-hearted Wraxine. 

“ I am free of all unworthy compacts,” she mused, 
“ Marie is still a terra incognita to me! If she has a 
heart, it has never spoken yet! And I have not yet 
won her whole confidence! She may be under that 
satiny skin — as cold at heart as Peter’s granite statue! 
The rage of the Grand Duke may fall first upon Wrax- 
ine ; it must not fall upon me ! And if they meddle with 
this strange girl until I can lead her into the freedom of 
marriage, I will lose her forever, and then my court 
life is at an end! For the Grand Duke Anatole would 
hound me from the Winter Palace! He knows too 
much of my past.” She confessed this with guilty 
blushes which left her cheeks aflame! 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 77 

“ There is but one to whom I can safely turn — Kalo- 
mine! The very ministry fear him, and even the 
Neckers need the help of the Imperial Bank. He shall 
be my last citadel of refuge! And if I do go over to 
him, it is with all the vital secrets of the Necker ring of 
contractors, and the proofs of all these piled-up 
frauds.” 

Heartless au fond, and ready to abandon Marie Kri- 
loff at the first sign of her intractability; yet, for her 
own future, Xenie Karovitch decided to let Baron 
Michel Wraxine alone, act the ignoble part in which 
he was cast in the dark drama. For well she knew 
that such women as herself could not safely hunt in 
couples ! 

By a double treason, General Wraxine handed Mad- 
ame Barbe Anykoff a package on behalf of the Grand 
Duke Anatole, with a note sealed with the imperial 
arms, on the very same sunny afternoon that Madame 
Karovitch entered the private office of the almost in- 
visible banker, August Necker, at St. Petersburg. 

The cool, old financier was swept from his icy reserve 
when the audacious Baroness quietly informed him of 
the impending giving out of the vast contracts for the 
whole barracks and cantonments of the Second Divi- 
sion of the Rovno Army Corps. 

“ And, if so, what then, Excellence? ” growled the 
miserly old chief of the vulture gang, now fattening 
upon the Czar’s military chest. 

“ My influence with the Grand Duke has been asked 
by others,” Xenie sharply said, with an unblushing 
hardihood. 

“ I do not choose that General Wraxine, alone, shall 
profit by your monopoly in Volhynia. I have some 
pressing debts. I need a large sum of ready money, 
and if you can not furnish it to me, with no reference 
to others, why, as I go away to Finland this afternoon, 
I shall simply place the information which I have of 
the First Division contracting at the disposition of 
those who will succeed you! ” 

“ I will then send a cipher telegram to Baron Wrax- 
ine,” threateningly said the shaken financier. 

“ Do so! ” calmly answered the inexorable woman. 


78 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

“ I shall hear the news from him at once, and I shall 
surely expose you before sunset to-morrow to one who 
is nearer the favor of the Emperor than any member of 
your house. Suppose that the General Baron Wrax- 
ine should be suddenly relieved! You would then lose 
all your vast secret advances to him if I exposed your 
fraudently dealings with the government! ” 

“Woman, what do you mean?” cried the enraged 
banker, starting up. 

“ I mean,” boldly cried the cunning siren, “ that the 
Grand Duke’s heavy hand can only be stayed by me! 
However, take your choice! You have chosen ruin! 
So be it!” 

Sweeping outward to her carriage, Madame Karo- 
vitch halted a single moment at the cashier’s desk: 

“ Send me the balance of my account and all my 
private papers, instantly, to the Maison Kriloff,” she 
said, coldly. 

And it was all in vain that the old millionaire chief of 
the house stood bareheaded at her carriage door, im-. 
ploring for a few moments delay. 

“ You are wise in your own conceit, sir,” she cut- 
tingly said. “ Wait and see! ” 

Before Xenie Karovitch stole away in the evening 
train to Viborg, the humbled chief of the federated 
army contractors had himself brought to her one hun- 
dred and fifty thousand roubles. 

“ This, is mere pin money,” laughed the victorious 
woman. “ I am not afraid that you will ever mention 
this little transaction to General Wraxine! Now, mark 
me — I shall be back at Rovno in two weeks, when the 
next contracts are awarded. You can give your ad- 
ministrator there his secret orders to treat with me, 
as well as the corps commander! Then you can easily 
learn if my power still holds! ” 

All that evening, as Xenie Karovitch chatted mer- 
rily with her maid, as the Finland train dashed through 
the gay summer resorts now peopled with the pilgrims 
of fashion, she wondered how she could hide her own 
traitorous escapade. 

There were two matters now pressing on her mind — 
the one to hoodwink Madame Barbe Anykoff as to her 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


79 


secret intimacy with the Director General, and the 
other to safely conceal her loot, frightened from the 
head of the great army-furnishing cabal which had 
once robbed the starving hosts at Plevna, and was now 
taking its toll of the vast Rovno constructions. 

The expedient of sending her maid back from Vi- 
borg to be relieved by the intendant, would blind the 
eyes of that household spy, Barbe Anykoff, and with a 
three days’ run to Stockholm, she could safely lodge 
the money wrung out of the unwilling Wraxine, as 
well as the spoil of Necker, in the Swedish agency of 
the Rothschilds! 

“ Once turned into Bank of England notes in their 
hands, I can surely defy the angry Fates!” laughed 
Xenie. 

She had taken a secret alarm at Michel Wraxine’s 
coarse threat of abandoning her once more to debt and 
poverty. 

“ In this sale of a soul, I shall have my price! ” she 
murmured ; “ and Marie shall fight single-handed 
against her own destiny! She shall elect for herself, 
and then guard her own heart and head.” 

Xenie dared not go on further on the dangerous road 
which led between a Grand Duke’s implacable hatred 
and General Wraxine’s baffled fury. 

“ A la fin — there is always Kalomine,” she mused ; 
“ but, the court circle will be closed to me. If aught 
befall, I can now live in comfort out of Russia with this 
money, and I also have the deposit at the Imperial 
Bank, and that is protected by the laws of the Empire!” 
She was on safe ground at last! 

It was ten days later when a swan-like pleasure boat 
swept up to the marble landing of Alexandre Kalo- 
mine’s Finland villa, and the banker tenderly assisted 
Madame Karovitch to land. 

The little excursion, a l’improviste, to Stockholm, 
had been only a runaway madness of passionate in- 
trigue, but, the week of dalliance in the whispering gar- 
dens of Viborg had made Kalomine a blind tool of the 
daring woman’s secret designs. 

And, now, dreading the parting hour, he had vainly 
begged to be allowed to come in a month to Warsaw, 


8o 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


and meet the velvet-eyed siren there, in a week stolen 
away from her summer friends. 

“ Think — think of the danger of our discovery,” 
murmured Xenie, as she carelessly opened her letters, 
secretly forwarded by the intendant from the Maison 
Kriloff. 

Her brow grew gloomy as she read, and then ex- 
claimed : 

“ This girl is mad — mad ! Do you see now, Alex- 
andre, that this Marie Kriloff is a dangerous charge! 
Barbe writes me to come back at once! There is trou- 
ble! ” 

And even as she spoke a messenger with telegrams, 
hastened in from the town. 

When Xenie had read the three messages, she 
sprang to her feet in a sudden alarm. 

“I must go back, at once — this very night!” she 
cried, as she hastened away to pen imperative answers 
to her unwelcome tidings. 

And, yet, when Kalomine parted with the excited 
woman that evening in Petersburg, he knew nothing 
of the storm which swept over her troubled soul. 

All that her bond slave knew was that but six weeks 
of dreary heart exile lay before him, for Madame Karo- 
vitch only announced her probable return to St. Peters- 
burg on the first week of October. 

“ You shall have any establishment you choose on 
your return,” he pleaded. “ Any surroundings, only 
come back to me! ” 

The intendant and Madame’ s favorite maid watched 
the beauty’s troubled face as she counted every verst 
made by the clicking wheels. 

Xenie Karovitch had destroyed every vestige of the 
three warning telegrams. 

Wraxine’s imperative summons, Madame Barbe’s 
frightened appeal, and the first note of defiance from 
Marie Kriloff were safely hidden. 

“ If you do not instantly return I shall leave all and 
come to St. Petersburg,” the orphan had telegraphed. 

“ There has been worse than crime — there has been 
some gross blundering!” gloomily reflected the an- 
gered woman. “ Thank God that I am not helpless any 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


8l 


longer under Michel Wraxine’s armed heel! I now 
hold his very future in the hollow of my hand! ” 

Two days later, the carriage dashed through the rose 
bowers of the Villa Lubomirski at Rovno, and Xenie 
Karovitch strode into the deserted drawing-room. 

“ The Baroness Marie,” she hastily demanded, as the 
maitre d’hotel met her with a frightened face. 

“ Is ill in her own rooms, and will see no one! ” the 
General’s Leporello gravely answered. 

“ Madame Anykoff ? ” cried Xenie, in wonder. 

“ Madame Barbe is driving with General Wraxine,” 
slowly said the dissimulator. “ Your Excellency’s re- 
turn was not expected until midnight, and your tele- 
gram arrived after the General and Madame Barbe left 
this morning.” 

Too proud to be helpless at the mercy of a servant’s 
curiosity, the cunning intrigante calmly sought her 
own apartments. 

“ Say nothing of my arrival,” the returned pilgrim 
said, “ but, send Madame Anykoff to me, instantly, on 
her return.” 

The evening shadows were falling when Barbe Any- 
koff hastened to her friend’s side. 

Even in the confusion of the greeting Xenie’s quick 
eye caught a glimpse of the magnificent porte bonheur 
of matchless diamonds gleaming on the shapely arm 
of her tacit accomplice. 

“You have to tell me — what?” demanded Xenie, 
with a perfunctory caress. 

“ Only the unsolved mystery of Marie’s strange se- 
clusion ! ” murmured the cautious widow. “ Since the 
Grand Duke’s reception and bal de noblesse she has 
been invisible to all. and, pour moi, as distant and in- 
tractable as a polar bear! J’en suis finie! Take over 
your household, ma cherie ! I leave for St. Petersburg 
in the morning ! ” 

“And, this is all?” cried Xenie, with difficulty re- 
straining her rage. “ I waited before going to Marie 
to hear your story ! ” 

“ I leave it for the Baroness Marie and General 
Wraxine to enlighten you! I am only a lay figure! 
Maintenant, je ferai mes malles ! ” 


82 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


It was fortunate that Madame Anykoff dined in her 
own apartment, for the hostess had suddenly disap- 
peared. With the maitre d’hotel as a forerunner, 
Xenie Karovitch stole away to keep a tryst with Gen- 
eral Baron Michel Wraxine at his own secluded per- 
sonal headquarters. “ The General awaits you/ the 
sly go-between had whispered. “ He only drove Mad- 
ame Barbe Anykoff out to veil the anxiety of meeting 
vou.” 

Once closeted with her stubborn and only half-sin- 
cere tyrant lover, Xenie Karovitch was mocked with a 
second enigmatic answer ! “ We are both hovering 

on the brink of ruin,” he growled. “ I know noth- 
ing ! I believe the girl is mad ! Ask her, or else — take 
the Grand Duke into your own hands ! The mystery 
lies between them » His Highness is here, and eagerly 
awaiting your return ! ” 

With eves blazing with suppressed fires, Xenie 
Karovitch glided away, leaving the baffled General 
alone, the prev to a tumultuous passion. 

Her one taunt had struck home : “ You have broken 
our compact! I am nov/ absolved from all my prom- 
ises, and, you will seek me before I seek you! ” 

And then, regaining her villa, in a chance caught- 
up droschkv, the mistress of Villa Lubomirski quiet- 
ly entered the boudoir of the beauty whose conduct 
had become the mystery of the moment ! “ I can af- 

ford to wait ! They are all lying to me,” mused Xenie, 
when she had, in amazed astonishment, listened to 
Marie Kriloff’s answer : 

“ I have nothing to tell you, save that I can not re- 
main here alone ! You are here now ; all will be well ! ” 

The cool woman of the world gazed upon the or- 
phan’s inscrutable face. There was something in it 
which she had never seen written there before. 

“ First page in the Book of Life,” muttered Xenie, 
as, with a catlike carelessness, she affected to dismiss 
the girl’s evasive reply from mind. 

And then, with a charming philosophy, she supped 
alone, with a delicate gourmandize, and slept soundly 
— though these threatening storms obscured the social 
horizon. 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. • 83 

The sunlight of the morning was no brighter than 
Xenie Karovitch’s sunny face as she, with a true Rus- 
sian duplicity, personally cheered the parting guest. 
It was Madame Karovitch who waved the last adieu 
when the train sped away ! 

Madame Barbe’s compartment was a floral bower; 
there was the intendant in special charge of the parting 
guest to conduct her back to St. Petersburg, and yet — 
the two women had exchanged a parting glance of un- 
spoken disdain and mistrust! 

But, Barbe Anykoff’s cheeks were crimson as she 
dropped her eyes, for the telltale diamond porte bon- 
heur had been hidden ! 

Not a word beyond the banalities of the adieu had 
been exchanged, and the secretly exultant Xenie never 
even mentioned her guest’s departure to the beauti- 
ful orphan, whose unruffled face, serene in smiles, 
met her aunt upon her return. 

“ There is really something to tell,” mused the 
adroit Xenie, “and it is something that I will neve 
know ! But the leaven is working — the pride of life— 
and so, I will let the play go on undisturbed ! It will 
play itself out now f ” 

To complete Xenie Karovitch’s perfect conviction of 
the refined deviltry and moral cowardice of the vicious 
“ high life a la mode de Russie,” she was not wrongly 
armed in donning her most exquisite toilet. 

For, at two o’clock, the visit of His Imperial High- 
ness the Grand Duke Anatole, accompanied by Gen- 
eral Baron Michel Wraxine, was a signal to the whole 
summer city that the uncrowned social queen had re- 
turned and taken up her scepter. 

In vain did Michel Wraxine try to steal a few mo- 
ments for a whispered pleading. 

With a serene courtesy. Xenie aided her beautiful 
relative in the polished persiflage of the exchange of 
that small talk which marks the penury of gilded so- 
ciety. 

“ The play is on,” laughed Xenie, softly, as she 
waved her salutation to the departing cavaliers. 
“ Marie has found her role, and she will play it out with 
a masterly touch ! For, whatever secret brutality has 


84 THE SHIELD OF HlS HONOR. 

been committed it is too deep for words ! I shall never 
know the history of the bal de noblesse ! ” 

And Madame Xenie, frankly ignoring the past, 
moved steadily along in her olden way, silently wonder- 
ing what varying impulses had led to the appeal of 
the three telegrams. 

The days glided on, with every pleasure-laden hour 
varied in the summer’s enjoyments, and still, Marie 
Kriloff gave no sign of confidence to the woman wh 
was far too fine to catch at any bit of floating gossip. 

Only with Michel Wraxine, the tyranny was re- 
versed ! The glance which rewarded the General’s at- 
tempted resumption of the golden part which had 
bound them left him tongue-tied in silent shame. 

And yet, the beautiful mystery at her side never for 
a moment lowered that shining blade on guard! Too 
well, in her own guilty bosom, Xenie Karovitch knew 
that Marie Kriloff’s eyes had been opened ! That she 
knew, at last, how fair she was, how madly she was de- 
r: "ed; and the worldling knew tho t whatever wound 
1 ;-d rent that silent bosom, it had been seared into in- 
sensibility. 

The Grand Duke’s redoubled courtesies and Michel 
Wraxine’s abject, spaniel-like submission, only proved 
still further the unspoken wrong. 

^»ut, sitting alone in her own haven of refuge, after 
the day’s pleasurings were all over, Marie Kriloff ’s 
mind recalled the vanished magnificence of the bal de 
noblesse, for which the Grand Duke had appropriated 
the grand old Chateau Lubomirski. 

It had not seemed strange to her that the fete should 
be given in Xenie’s absence. For the Imperial blood 
may not brook any delay or refusal. 

But long after Barbe x\nvkoff had hidden her dis- 
appointments on the Neva, and Xenie ceased her cat- 
like watch, Marie lived over again every incident of the 
superb entertainment. 

With due hesitation she had declined to attend the 
ball, limited in toilet still by her period of semi- 
mourning. 

And now she alone knew the full significance of the 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 85 

personal pleading of the Grand Duke that she would 
honor the reception. 

For he had allured her to view the glories of the ball 
from the galleries of the third story, overlooking the 
great second-story banquet halls, now gleaming again 
with gold and crystal, with tapestry and trophied arms. 

General Wraxine’s courtly and insistent gallantry 
had carried the day, and — she had yielded to his veiled 
hints of what the two beauties of Villa Lubomirski 
owed to their princely host of the magnificent revel ! 

And the soft persuasion of Barbe Anykoff now was 
recalled, with a loathing of the outraged spirit. 

It had been impossible for Marie Kriloff to disobey 
an invitation which was almost a command. 

The Marechal de Noblesse of Volhynia had named 
as guests the ladies from the sacred cercle de noblesse, 
who, gathered in a ring of beauty around the Grand 
Duke, received the convives of the superb fete cham- 
t petre, with its concert, its military games, and its des- 
perately ridden officers’ races. 

There had been a grand banquet in the triple avenue 
of tents before the chateau, and the old castle was once 
more ablaze with golden light ! 

The White Eagle looked down again on graceful 
forms, and manly chivalry. The glitter of stars, the 
gleam of diamonds ; the brighter sheen of happy eyes ; 
the soft murmurs of passion’s pleading, brought back 
to the old halls the glories of the old days, when Na- 
poleon, with Duroc, Caulaincourt, and Bessieres, had 
watched the witching polonaise and the mad mazurka 
in these very same love-haunted rooms. 

Marie Kriloff had yielded to the protection of Mad- 
ame la Generale Paskiewitch, and given up the re- 
splendent Barbe Anykoff to the knightly guidance of 
Michel Wraxine. 

“ It is the high midsummer,” murmured the corps 
commander. “ Half of the troops go out on the ma- 
neuvers, and the Grand Duke’s only sorrow is, that he 
could not defer this festival for Baroness Xenie’s re- 
turn, and that, in the dance, we miss the fairest face, 
the lightest foot, the Queen of Pearls ! ” 

And, as the sun went down over the warm fields. 


86 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


still rich in their ungathered harvests, the odor of rose 
and mignonette swept down the river from the leafy 
groves, now dear to countless lovers ! 

The voice of mighty Pan stirred the whispering 
reeds by the crystal stream, and the sunset gold lit up 
the yellow flag with its double-headed eagles. 

Marie knew now the story of the old chateau, the 
romance of My Lady's Walk, and all the grim legends 
of the dungeons of the doubled basement casemates. 

The chivalric old Count Lazienski had taken the 
beautiful orphan under the protection of his silvered 
age, the contemporary of the Potockis, the Bran- 
nickis, and the Radzivils — told her the story of the past 
glories of the house of Lubomirski. 

The younger cavaliers of the haughty noblesse en- 
vied the veteran of Poland’s last struggle, as, with the 
peerless beauty on his arm, he showed her the hallowed 
spot where Bonaparte received a score of kings on the 
lawn, in 1807 ! 

The towering Mars on the north pedestal had lost 
his useless sword, and his sightless eyes were vainly 
turned to the armless Venus, a poor, frozen exile from 
Carrara. 

Only Valdor Lazienski could decipher the twelve 
superbly chiseled coats of arms on the facade of the 
two wings! 

Standing under the peristyle of six superb monoliths, 
he painted the glories of the old days when the Lubo- 
mirskis ruled Volhvnia. 

The two great wings, the huge central facade, the 
great galleries above, were echoing with the merry 
laughter of the mercurial Muscovites on this happy 
day. 

Long after the splendid banquet, when the Grand 
Duke had broken up his court under the regal oaks, 
the lonely orphan had stolen away to a nook on the 
highest gallery of the vaulted main hall. 

It was inexpressibly beautiful, the swaying dance be- 
low her there, with its “ woven paces and its waving 
arms ! ” 

There was the “ minuet de la cour,” with all the 
dancers in stately Louis Ouatorze costumes ; the polo- 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


»7 


naise, with the old family regalia, ransacked from a 
score of Volhynian palaces; the mazurka, where the 
quartets all represented historical Russian court 
characters ! 

And the silver moon swung overhead, passing on 
till Marie Kriloff sat hidden in rich, dusky shadows ! 

While she dreamed there alone of her yet unfolded 
future, she suddenly heard a passionate voice whisper- 
ing : “ The Queen of Roses shall yet be crowned ! 

For, I will wear you on my heart! ” 

With a terrified gasp, the orphan tore off the insult- 
er’s encircling arms, and sternly faced the tall soldier, 
magnificent in an antique Boyar dress. 

The gleam of her eyes told the princely lover of the 
wrath of an outraged soul! With one mad spring, 
Marie Kriloff reached the open casement ! 

It was a sheer hundred feet below to the fanged stone 
pavement of the rear esplanade ! 

“ Stir a single inch, and I will hurl myself down ! I 
swear it, by my mother’s grave ! ” she threatened. 

And then, the affrighted Grand Duke knelt before 
her. 

“ Pardon my madness ! I was borne beyond my- 
self ! I swear that I will leave you ! I will atone ! You 
are safe! You shall shine yet, a jewel of the Winter 
Palace, beloved, respected, adored ! ” 

But the trembling beauty stood there with her foot 
still resting on the window-ledge, and the dizzy depth 
yawning below her ! Her face was ashen pale ! 

“ You said you owed me a boon ! Your Highness,” 
she slowly faltered, in a choking voice, “ my brother 
died for your flag ! Swear to me that you will leave 
me! That you will forget this night — blot this cow- 
ardly scene from your heart ! I have only the memory 
of my dead brother as the talisman to guard my help- 
lessness! If you are a soldier, GO! ” 

When Marie Kriloff sped down the deserted gallery 
leading to the east, she knew that the princely offender 
had taken flight by the western stairway ! 

Gliding into the waiting-room, she seized the first 
scarf and then veiled her statelv beauty. 

Stealing out upon the lawn, in rear of the chateau, 


88 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

she saw the park was thickly crowded with carriages ! 

And the first coachman leaped to his seat at her 
stern command. 

Safely back in the Villa Lubomirski, Marie had sent 
the maitre d’hotel down to warn Madame Anykoff of 
the sudden indisposition of her neglected charge. 

And now,, conscience stricken, Barbe Anykoff had 
feared to answer General Wraxine’s brusque demands 
for the vanished beauty ! 

He feared to question the Grand Duke, whose cloud- 
ed brow mocked the midnight merriment of the reck- 
less ball. 

Safe in her villa home — with a shudder — Marie re- 
called that only Madame Anykoff had known of her 
chosen hiding-place — a favorite nook in the old cha- 
teau, open to the noblesse at all times ! 

“ She would have given me over to shame ! ” the in- 
dignant orphan sobbed, as she closed her doors to all. 

Beyond her sternly worded telegram to Xenie, the 
young Queen of Roses had made no sign! And so 
Prince, and General, and faithless woman friend all 
watched each other — in a stealthy dissimulation — till 
the return of Madame Karovitch had enabled Barbe 
Anykoff to escape from the danger of a violent es- 
clandre. Fortunately, the keen-eyed gossips had seen 
nothing ! 

And now, as the golden September days glided away, 
and the northern winds began to drift the flaming au- 
tumn leaves, deep piled in the Volhvnian dells, the 
summer roses fell, leaf by leaf, and the gay devotees of 
fashion stole away to Moscow and Warsaw — to gay 
St. Petersburg — and the mad whirl of pleasure ebbed 
away from fair Rovno! 

The fields were all shorn at last, the gray battalions 
were hutted for the winter, and General Wraxine, with 
a feverish zeal, urged on the great constructions to 
shelter his men before the winter snows should drive 
the toiling moujiks to cover. 

Marie Kriloff had found a truly congenial mate in 
the spirited little Countess Pauline Lazienski, the last 
of a noble Polish line. There was no diminution of 
Xenie Karovitch’s watchful tenderness, no cessation of 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


General Wraxine’s courtly attentions, and the Grand 
Duke Anatole, with unflagging zeal, now brought the 
Baroness Xenie forward as the directing spirit of the 
season’s closing fetes. It was his only safeguard to 
avoid a widespread scandal ! 

But, between Wraxine and the cunning woman 
whom he had failed to master, a smoldering resent- 
ment burned, for the guilty partners in intrigue felt the 
sands shifting beneath their feet. 

The explosion came at last, when Marie had stolen 
away to the Chateau Lazienski for a three days’ fare- 
well sojourn with the dainty little Countess Pauline. 

In the private cabinet of the Corps Commander’s 
guarded quartier-general, two warring natures strove 
bitterly for the mastery. 

Xenie Karovitch, watchful and unyielding, listened 
to the storm of useless rage which made Michel Wrax- 
ine a black-browed demon. 

She had been summoned hastily by the smug con- 
fidant of the mighty General. 

“ Beware, Madame,” whispered the maitre d’hotel, 
“ the black hour is upon him ! ” 

The dauntless adventuress toved with a perfumed 
cigarette as she listened to the fatal intelligence of the 
sudden withdrawal of the Grand Duke’s favor. 

“ The whole vast constructions of the Second Divis- 
ion — the projects for the Third Division — are all tem- 
porarily countermanded. I am ordered to return all the 
contractors’ schedules and vouchers, and even now 
mv successor may be named ! You have failed me ! ” 

Xenie laughed bitterly. “ You know the secret story 
of your bungling in my absence ! You ruined all, and, 
if you did not. then Barbe Anvkoff has played the 
traitress, or else — the Grand Duke has shown himself 
a human wolf! I told you to beware! And — you 
have all deceived me ! ” 

“ Listen,” growled the enraged soldier. “ One week 
from to-day is the first of October; the villa must be 
then surrendered 1 You can either save me, by your 
active help, or else go back to starve on the Place Mi- 
chel with My Lady Disdain! You have not a rouble 
left between you! I will send you back decently, so 


90 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


as to avoid a scandal, but that ends all! Either save 
me or else shift for yourself ! ” 

“ What must I do ? ” demanded Xenie, her heart 
filled with a secret scorn of the threatening brute. 

“ Throw yourself in the. Grand Duke’s path ! Tell 
him that you fear to trust Marie Kriloff, a dowerless 
girl, to the chance of a future of poverty, and that our 
coming marriage depends upon the confirmation of my 
command. He will then be bound to you ! Ask him 
for the confirmation of my corps rank as the wedding 
present ! ” 

The swarthy soldier dropped his eyes for very shame. 

The bribe of a human soul was to be offered in this 
unholy compact. 

But, Xenie Karovitch’s face hardened. “ You have 
jeered at my poverty,” she sharply said. You have 
even threatened me ! True, I have had my poor, paltry 
wage in this gadfly summer glory ! But you must give 
me a free hand and pay me well ! As for Marie Kri- 
loff — look to yourself ! If you do not marry her out of 
hand, you will lose her ! And only her orphan’s pride 
will bring her to your arms ! As for fear— she knows 
it not ! She is a stronger soul than either of us ! And 
— she must be deceived — deceived by me alone ! She 
has taken the alarm ! I can guess at the Grand Duke’s 
brutal rashness ! But she has loyally kept her secret ! 
Beware of her, though ! ” 

“ I care not! ” growled Wraxine. “ Once that she 
is my wife, he is then in our power ! He dare not aban- 
don me, and my name and rank will cover all ! ” 

For hours, the human panthers wrangled over their 
innocent prey, until Xenie Karovitch had brought the 
desperate schemer to his knees. 

“ I will be your secret slave,” he pledged at parting, 
“ and Necker shall give a wedding douceur of a quar- 
ter of a million roubles to you ! If the Grand Duke 
sanctions the marriage, you know all that it means ! ” 

A week later, Marie Kriloff faced the Baroness 
Karovitch in a paroxysm of tears. The well-laid plans 
of the faithless guardian had brought the orphan to a 
bedside of simulated illness. 

Frozen into stone, the helpless orphan listened to 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


91 


the story of sudden ruin — the failure of her relative’s 
agents — and the penury staring them in the face. And 
now the time of leaving Rovno was upon them ! 

“ This summer luxury — was it not of your provid- 
ing?” demanded Marie, her voice sounding hollow 
and hopeless. 

And then, with tears and sobs of simulated confes- 
sion, Xenie Karovitch murmured the lying story of 
General Wraxine’s noble generosity. 

The scales had fallen from the young beauty’s eyes ! 
She knew now of her aunt’s supposed sacrifices to 
maintain her niece’s position during the season of 
mourning. The winter was before them, and the tale 
of the sudden sweeping away of the whole Karovitch 
fortune by the dishonesty of a fugitive steward and a 
failing banker, summed up the ruin before the two 
lonely women. 

The midnight hour was upon them before Xenie 
confessed the unpaid debt to General Wraxine for the 
summer splendors of the Villa Lubomirski. 

“ And so, I have really broken his bread all this 
season,” murmured the helpless, beauty. “ It is a debt 
of honor, and must be paid ! ” 

With an unerring sagacity, Xenie Karovitch had 
fathomed the girl’s high-souled nature. The long 
hours dragging by only weighed her down more deep- 
ly, with the sense of the sacrifices which had been made 
for her. 

It was most artfully done, the frankly spoken words 
of the General, when he also broke in upon Marie Kri- 
loff’s mental torture. 

Pale and silent, the lonely hearted woman listened 
to the blunt soldier’s offer of his name and home. 

Xenie Karovitch had, with a delicate art, refrained 
from one single word of counsel. 

The daughter of Helene Souvaroff gazed sadly in 
the eves of her stern suitor. 

“ I will ask but one favor,” the pallid beauty mur- 
mured — “ that there be no display — and — that I may 
be allowed to avoid the clamor of society until after 
Easter.” 

When General Wraxine rode away at the head of his 


92 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


glittering staff he carried a traitor’s heart in his bosom. 
The bait was taken ! 

In the half hour of their meeting, the haunting eyes 
of the beautiful orphan had told him of the surrender 
of her hand to pay the sacred obligation of his veiled 
hospitality. 

And even Xenie Karovitch feared now to break in 
upon the icy reserve of the young patrician’s self-sac- 
rifice. 

“ I shall go to Pauline Lazienski, at Warsaw, for a 
week ! ” gravely said the Baroness Marie. “ General 
Wraxine will bring his personal representatives there. 
He will escort you, and then — the marriage can take 
place at once. He will choose all the ladies to accom- 
pany you ! ” 

That night, standing alone on the veranda, Marie 
Kriloff gazed down into the valley where the moon- 
light shivered its lances upon the roofs of the old 
chateau. 

“ Blood pays all debts,” she murmured. “ I will at 
least have a name, a protector — and — my life shall flow 
on like the river shaded by the forests, darkened in 
quiet peace, serene and unbroken by storms ! ” 

There was not even a whisper of the coming mar- 
riage of the haughty General, when Marie Kriloff, un- 
der the escort of Count Lazienski, left the valley of 
Rovno, where the fallen rose leaves were now drifted 
on the deserted paths. 

But, Xenie Karovitch alone knew of the Grand 
Duke’s sanction which sealed the fortunes of General 
Baron Michel Wraxine. And the sale of a soul went 
on in all its hideous cruelty. 

When, two weeks later, the pale beauty stood as a 
bride before the altar of the oldest Russian church in 
Warsaw she never gazed right or left as the music 
echoed in the vaulted domes. 

Her beautiful eyes were downcast! Her stately love- 
liness shone out in her simple wedding robes as she 
stood there, a sacrifice to her own silent code of honor ! 

Her martial husband's voice sounded far off in her 
ears as she turned away to leave the gorgeous shrine. 

With a wondering glance, she gazed upon the tall 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


93 


officer in a superb Cuirassier uniform, who had held 
the golden crown over her graceful head. 

It was only when he rose to propose her health at 
the wedding feast at the Chateau Lazienski that the 
pale bride met the glances of his earnest eyes ! 

And General Wraxine answered, pledging the grace- 
ful speaker, “ To the representative of His Highness 
the Grand Duke Anatole — Captain Prince Paul Zas- 
trow — my first aid-de-camp.” 

And, pretty Pauline Lazienski sighed as she gazed 
at the new addition to the staff ! For the young prince 
was as graceful as the peerless Michael who slew the 
fabled dragoai 


f 


.1 


BOOK II. 

In the Panther’s Claws. 


chapter VI. 

THE OLD, OLD STORY. 

It was on the evening after that sudden marriage, 
which had startled all the gossips of General Wrax- 
ine’s army corps to a timorous dumbness, that Xenie 
Karovitch sat alone in a grand boudoir salon of the 
Hotel de TEurope at Warsaw. 

The cold blasts whistled over the . Place de l’Univer- 
site, where the flower of the young Polish nobility had 
perished in the last brutal massacre. 

The October skies were dreary in their deep-vaulted, 
icy green. But a bright birch fire sparkled in the room. 
There was a cozy dinner for two spread, and Baroness 
Xenie was in a ravishing demi toilette. She awaited 
that chivalric V aldor Lazienski. 

“ He can read this riddle,” mused Xenie, who had 
feared to brave the pale, silent bride, a daughter of the 
snows, in her white silk and gleaming blue-white 
pearls. 

General Baron Michel Wraxine had returned to his 
trebly important command without a single word to 
indicate his wishes to his reckless feminine ally. 

Whatever had prompted Marie Kriloff to an instant 
self-immolation, the crafty Xenie now felt that the ave- 
nues to the Rovno paradise were now closed forever. 

From the very instant of the nuptial benediction, the 
silent bride had quietly assumed all the queenly rights 
of wifehood. If there was any public response called 
for by General Wraxine’s lofty courtesy, the serene 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 95 

dignity of the young wife was equal to the varying 
occasion. 

Xenie, sin-stained and soiled, was powerless to read 
the light shining out on the placid brows of the high- 
souled orphan. 

But from Marie’s first spoken word after she was 
consecrated the Baroness Wraxine, Xenie knew that 
her guiding influence was lost forever. 

“ I will send your maid and the intendant to my 
home on the Place Michel, with all your luggage and 
belongings,” gravely said Marie. 

“ The General has already telegraphed to Elia and 
Marie that the house is yours as long as you wish to 
use it! ” 

“ Will you not set up your own establishment? ” 
artfully asked the wondering Xenie. 

“ I shall complete my full period of retirement before 
opening our official home,” said Marie. “ The General 
will keep the villa as a home for me, and will still retain 
his own personal apartments at the Cercle de Noblesse. 
Thus I can be left alone, and so, I am no longer a help- 
less charge upon your hands! I have requested the 
General to arrange with you for all the generous ex- 
penditures made for me since I was left penniless! ” 

In sheer poverty of language, Xenie murmured : 
“ And, to Barbe Anykoff what .greeting ? ” 

“ None whatever ! ” coldly said Marie. “ Madame 
Anykoff perfectly understands my sentiments! I owe 
her nothing! ” 

“ Then I will go on from here direct,” murmured 
Xenie. “ You can send the servants and my luggage 
direct by Wilna! Where will you spend the winter? ” 

“ Probably in Odessa,” Marie calmly answered. “ I 
have no desire to ever see St. Petersburg again.” 

“ And, the Court? You must be presented on your 
new rank ! ” was the worldling’s last tentative remark. 

“ Wherever the flag of Russia flies over an army 
corps,” simply replied Marie, “ is the home of its com- 
mander.” 

Xenie Karovitch’s face was now a burning crimson. 
A sudden fear smote her agitated heart! Had the 
silent orphan discovered the robbery of the moneys 


96 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


secretly recovered by the prudent Kalomine? Had 
Wraxine betrayed her and warned Marie? 

“No!” she quickly resolved. “Kalomine is true! 
I must reach him at once! I need his counsels! But 
this Wraxine — he is brutal and capable of anything! 
Dare he betray me? No! There is Siberian disgrace 
— the chains of the convict before him! This high- 
spirited young neophyte has simply hurled herself in 
his arms to escape the gnawing shame of dependence! 
And he will soon tame her heart of fire; he will break 
her to work his will ! ” 

It was with a haggard anxiety, however, that she 
parted with the strange bridal pair. 

Michel Wraxine’s face was sternly inscrutable ; 
Marie’s set in a lofty self-control ! 

“ Elle est plus forte que moi,” sighed Xenie. “ And 
she may rule him with a rod of iron! There was 
something mysterious in the expression of the young 
wife’s face; the cold composure of her masterful man- 
ner! She is of the true, imperious Souvaroff blood! ” 
murmured Xenie. *“ X la fin, plus royal que les rois.” 

It had been a parting in apparent peace, and yet with 
neither affection nor regret, and for once in her life, 
Xenie Karovitch feared to steal a sly glance at one of 
her slaves. 

“ Apres tout, I pity. Michel Wraxine! I wish him 
jov of this human iceberg! ” muttered Xenie, as she 
plumed herself to meet Valdor Lazienski. 

The St. Petersburg beauty proposed to glean from 
the courtly old Polish Count such confidences as had 
been imparted to the witching Pauline, or to the aged 
noble. 

The dinner was charming, and yet for all her pre- 
hensile softness, the deceitful Xenie had thrown away 
her Yquem and Burgundy. 

The suave old Polish noble was gallant, quand 
meme, but he simply bowed when he said at parting: 

“ I am sorry that I can not aid you in determining 
the reasons of Baroness Marie’s sudden decision. 
Wraxine’s military position is superb; he has enor- 
mous estates, even if encumbered — his rank is of the 
highest; he is but little rising fifty, and the way of life 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 97 

is made smooth for that superb woman! You told me 
that she was penniless! Is that not the reason for this 
tragedy of life! It is not the sale of a soul — it is only 
the martyrdom of a proud heart! God grant that she 
does not learn that there are other sorrows in this 
weary world besides penury! We Polish nobles, 
Madame,” he gravely concluded, “ have walked in 
shadows since the entombment of our beloved land! 
All is death and desolation around us ! ” 

The acute-minded intrigant saw how futile it was to 
break into the whispered confidences of Pauline and 
Marie. 

“ This bright, brave falcon has soared above me and 
beyond me! ” sighed the fascinating widow. “ And so 
Michel’s home is to be a terra incognita to me? We 
will see! We will see! There is always the Necker 
tyranny — he fears that — and he shall fear me through 
that, and he shall work my will! And this new Prince 
Charming! Who is he? What does he here as a first 
aid-de-camp ?*” 

All that Xenie could extract was a shadowy halo ot 
the romantic history of young Paul Zastrow! A Cap- 
tain of the Circassian personal bodyguard of the Czar, 
he had been honorably exiled from Peterhofif and 
Tsarskoe to the field for a desperate love affair, in 
which a grand duchess had stooped to conquer! And 
this Zastrow’s desperate mission to the Pamirs, his 
forlorn hope visit to Thibet, his swimming the icy 
Volga, his duels, his winning the last officers’ gold cup, 
his chivalric Circassian adventures, all these pro- 
claimed the true paladin. 

That graceful, boyish-looking youth was the same, 
whether leading a forlorn hope or the mazurka in the 
white ballroom of the Winter Palace, with the placidly 
mysterious winning smile! 

Xenie had frowned darkly when General Wraxine 
told her that Prince Zastrow would have charge of his 
personal headquarters. 

“ Point de petites visites ! ” she mused. “ He either 
represents .the Grand Duke Anatole, or else — the 
Neckers! In the one case, he is my enemy; in the 
other, perhaps, fated to be my spy and tool ! ” 


98 


THi: SiJJ'.L!) OF IUS HONOR. 

The high character of the widowed Princess Pras- 
covie Zastrow was but too well known to Baroness 
Xenie. 

Still handsome in the late forties, a majestic beauty; 
a woman of head and heart and unbounded talents, she 
adored her only son — the last of the line — the one 
child who had ever brightened her dieary life! 

For the old PTince Feodor Zastrow, a weird relic of 
Boyar days, was dead these many years, and though 
sought for with a silent dignity, Princess Prascovie had 
strangely resisted a second marriage. She adored her 
young hero! 

“ Perhaps the gossips were right,” mused Xenie, as 
she “ unclasped the wedded eagles of her gown “ the 
boy may be sent here in brilliant position to marry 
Arline Potocki, the sole heiress of the enormous state 
and wealth of the Potockis, the last of the magnificent 
Polish nobles, who have retained their wealth, save the 
crafty Radzivills! Otherwise he will be a slave to 
Wraxine’s hideous temper and stern martinet ways, 
and, he is lost in Rovno' as head orderly to a corps 
commander! Without some prejudged purpose — que 
diable allait il faire, dans cette galere?” 

As she sighed herself into the dreams, haunted by 
her one signal defeat, Xenie thirsted to be safely at 
St. Petersburg, and so gain all the local news bv going 
afar off! 

“ Prince Charming! Prince Charming! ” she 
smiled, as in the bright morning sunlight she took the 
direct train for the Neva. “ Beware of troubling the 
quiet seas of this new matrimonial bliss ! For, they are 
‘ mare clausem ! ’ ” 

Xenie dimly recognized some hidden compact be- 
tween the eager General and the stately young bride ! 

“ She is ‘to rule the Villa Lubomirski, and he the 
personal headquarters at the guarded Cercle d" v ~- 
blesse! The Grand Duke! No! My God — that would 
be too horrible! ” 

Having telegraphed, in cipher, her coming arrival to 
Alexandre Kalomine, Baroness Xenie decided not to 
trouble further the strangely assorted lovers! 

All that she knew was that her niece had instantly 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 99 

resented her own taunt of dependence by throwing her- 
self blindly into Michel W raxine’s arms ! Xenie was 
far too good a diplomat to spy at second hand! 

“ I will stand mute,” she resolved ; “ only, there is 
Barbe Anykoff! A woman scorned and flouted, turned 
out, vi et armis, of this newly gilded lover's paradise ! 
She will gladly work my revenge! Barbe shall follow 
them on to Odessa, and she has her own alliance 
tendre left behind her at Rovno. I can operate 
smoothly and safely through her! ” 

Before Xenie Karovitch had frankly met the heart- 
happy Alexandre Kalomine in Barbe Anykoff’s par- 
lors two days later, she had taken up a permanent 
pied a terre in the Maison Kriloff. 

“ Here I can fight from the enemy’s citadel,” she 
mused, for she had vowed, now, with a keen malignity, 
the final disgrace and degradation of Marie Wraxine. 

“He is proud ; his name is unsullied ! But I can 
hold my own, for both the Grand Duke Anatole and 
Wraxine fear me, and these fetters of gold may be 
broken. Prince Charming is there, and Barbe Any- 
kofif, too, has a debt to pay! Down from her pedestal 
the haughty Marie shall come! I must only find the 
way! And, first, to let Wraxine repay me for all my 
‘ kindness,’ ” the velvet-eyed witch laughed. “ I shall 
make a good figure this winter at court. I have a sure 
friend in the Grand Duke, et a la fin ? Kalomine shall 
marry me if I choose, but the game shall be played 
out — jusqu a la dernier scene! ” 

A month only after the sudden marriage which had 
astonished all the military aristocracy of the Rovno 
corps,, not a noble officer, not a single patrician woman 
but had gathered an uneasy appreciation of the calm 
hauteur of the wife of the Commanding General! 

The snows were now sparsely whitening the shorn 
plains, and the long, gray battalions wound over the 
emerald fields no more. 

The crack of the hunter’s rifle resounded in the 
lonely forest, and the brilliant riding parties had all 
vanished from the deserted alleys. 

True, there was still wild cheer in the officers’ clubs 
C and the military casinos. 


I nlf., 


IOO 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


The Cercle de Noblesse now held continual revel 
under the dimmed white eagles of the old castle of the 
Lubomirskis, and every noble household within a 
hundred miles at this time shelteied its house pa.ty of 
jocund officers and bright-eyed, bold-hearted Russian 
beauties. 

“ The accursed thirst of gold ” burned in every heart, 
for, in this restricted season the gaming tables and 
“ plunging ” on the officers’ races opened their short 
avenues either to golden fortune or black ruin. 

The soldiers were all left to their winter employ- 
ments — finishing the interiors of the great, yellow- 
brick barracks, or else, under their sergeants and cor- 
porals, were fabricating their kits for the next spring’s 
maneuvers. 

Scores of the more fortunate officers were now scat- 
tered “ en conge,” from Odessa to St. Petersburg, and 
from Nijni to Warsaw. 

The few militaiy duties were the guard mounts, and 
the ceaseless tramping of the weary sentinels, their 
bayonets gleaming a frozen blue in the thin, frosty air. 

Only at the corps headquarters was a continual, 
never-ending convocation of the higher officers, eager- 
ly working out the details of the barracks, works, 
railways, and fortifications to be created by the Second 
and Third Division, and the huge artillery park, the 
cavalry camps, and engineer trains. 

The central figure of all this activity was General 
Baron Michel Wraxine, a fiery and energetic task- 
master. Whether sweeping along fifty versts a day, 
at the head of a magnificent staff, escorting the Grand 
Duke in the inspection of the engineers’ work, or per- 
sonally urging on the toiling hundreds of mechanics 
and thousands of dull-eyed, listless soldiers. Wrax- 
ine was “ a frame of adamant — a soul of fire.” 

The great cantonment, the forty thousand hardy sol- 
diery, the twenty thousand attendants, were all firmly 
held in his iron grasp, and yet the master of all, save 
his Imperial Inspector, the Corps Commander found 
the sealed heart of his silent bride to be a Gibraltar 

For some indefinable higher human ether hung 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


IOI 


around the Villa Lubomirski, where Marie Wraxine 
gently ruled with her silent, speaking eyes. 

She was the one human enigma of the great military 
city. Even the moujik on the road, the strolling pil- 
grim, knew her superb carriage with its clattering half 
dozen of lancers. 

There was the delicate, impassioned beauty of Pau- 
line Lazienski, a graceful shadow ever at her side. 

On the one magnificent afternoon reception of the 
home-coming of the strangely assorted couple, the 
entire official society of the corps had been bidden. 

For five long hours the tide of chivalric officers and 
bright-eyed women swept past the princely ring where 
General Wraxine and his peerless bride received the 
obeisance of the whole military family. 

A brave, haughty figure was Wraxine; his uniform 
gleaming with jeweled stars and orders; his diamond- 
studded sword glittering like Excalibur of old. And 
as the curved line of grizzled Colonels and proud 
Generals led up to the chief on the right, so, on the left, 
the gleaming jewel-decked rank of the wives of the 
superior commanders was a sinuous line of beauty, 
softly guiding on to where Marie Wraxine stood, with 
a veiled pride shining in her clear, bright eyes! 

While witching music breathed, the lynx-eyed 
higher staff moved on the guests with a quick sugges- 
tion, through the arched doors, where a royal banquet 
was spread, and scores of gorgeous lacqueys, with 
their noiseless tread, anticipated every wish. 

It was a royal pageant, and yet, in the little support- 
ing bevy of grandes dames, where the Princess Pras- 
covie Zastrow, the lovely Arline Potocki, and sweet 
Pauline Lazienski stood ,with the wives of the Divi- 
sion Generals, not one of the passing hundreds had 
seen a smile upon the carved lips of the Queen of 
Pearls! 

Only one among the waiting cavaliers had seen a 
sign of life on that pallid countenance. 

The grave, sweet dignity of Marie Wraxine’s face 
only varied for an instant, when His Highness, the 
Grand Duke Anatole, followed by his superb suite, 
humbly bowed before the lady of Villa Lubomirski! 


102 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


There was a flickering red tinge, and a trembling of 
the lip, lost upon all, save that dark-eyed Antinous, 
Prince Paul Zastrow. 

He alone saw the delicate hands quiver, as with a 
mighty effort she restrained herself when the Grand 
Duke, taking off his own highest order, pinned the 
glittering star on General Wraxine’s left breast. 

It was a princely recognition of the Corps Com- 
mander’s imperial favor. 

Lost upon others, the sudden thrill of feeling was 
perceived by Paul Zastrow, and for a moment, his eyes 
rested upon Marie standing there in all her peerless 
beauty. 

“ She is like the angels ! ” was the sudden verdict 
of Zastrow’s wildly beating heart ; and then, all his 
pleading soul shone in his eyes, as Marie, for the first 
time, fully drank in the mournful, elegant fascination 
of Zastrow’s remarkable glances. 

And now, she knew what manner of man had held 
the golden crown over her head, when she gave her 
liberty, her whole being, up in one mad, rash payment 
of the debt of helpless dependence. 

In the quiet month which had passed since the lune 
de miel, Paul Zastrow had never heard the flute-like 
voice, for his days were passed in dancing attendance 
upon the stern Corps Commander. 

And so, the marriage had now been blazoned forth 
in stately social guise. 

There had been also a superb masquerade ball at the 
vast Chateau, a pageant specially ordered by His 
Highness, the Grand Duke. 

Though Madame la Generale Wraxine had walked 
through the vast hall clad in her wedding robes, un- 
masked and leaning on her husband’s arm, she had 
only bowed in reverence to the Czar’s representative, 
and then passed on out into the splendid isolation of 
the villa. 

“ Plus que reine/’ murmured la Princesse Prascovie 
Zastrow. “ She is more than queen of all; she shines 
them down ! ” 

Paul Zastrow, in his romantic cavalier dress of 
Charles I, tried to forget the silent eyes of the Queen of 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 103 

Pearls, in the witching fascinations of Arline Potocki 
and the thrilling Pauline Lazienski, but, late that 
night, he dreamed of those love-haunted, unawakened 
eyes. 

The foaming wine had been drained a thousand 
times to the “ Queen of the Corps,” and though Mad- 
ame Wraxine had ceremoniously visited — en caractere 
— all the first ladies of the vast host, she remained a 
walking mystery to all. 

At Wraxine’s dinner of state, only the Princess 
Prascovie Zastrow, the Polish patricians, the old Count 
Lazienski, and the steady-eyed Grand Duke toasted 
the Czar! 

To all else, the stately bride, serenely moving on in 
every splendid function as a queen regnant, was a 
stranger queen, and seen only as in a glass — darkly. 

The high ceremonial courtesy of General Wraxine, 
never faltering, showed to his vast following the pride 
which filled a husband’s heart. 

And now, only the hot-hearted Xenie Karovitch, 
lingering on the Place Michel, driven on from one 
tempestuous pleasure to another, waited for the coming 
time when sorrow should avenge her! 

It was with an unspeakable humiliation that she had 
received Michel Wraxine’s princely repayment of her 
fictitious liberality ! 

Shuddering at heart at her own vile meanness, she 
silently accepted the crisp hundred thousand roubles! 

“ It is the price of the past — the bribe of silence — 
the seal of banishment for the future ! And, Marie still 
silent! It is her hand which has closed the door! 
Great God! There is always the Grand Duke! And 
he shall work my revenge! And Wraxine shall be 
forced to speak plainly! She shall know her hero as 
he is. There will be time at Odessa, and Barbe shall 
share the pleasure of filling the bitter cup! ” 

Already mastering the secret alliances of the coming 
year’s vast operations, Xenie, at once Necker’s tyrant 
and ally, now Kalomine’s guiding star, knew of the 
coming winter court of the Grand Duke at Odessa, 
and the enforced presence of the Corps Commander 
and his peerless bride. 


io4 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


“ It is an open tournament of life, there,” she 
laughed. “ I can not be excluded by my lady’s fan- 
cies, and a flattering word on the Black Sea, another 
on the Neva, will soon make the Grand Duke my un- 
conscious instrument! 

“ Tu me lo pagherai,” grimly swore Xenie, as, with 
pallid lips, she listened to all the stories of the con- 
quering Star of Beauty, far above her, there in the 
zenith, where Rovno’s blossomed roses had faded and 
died forever for her erring feet ! 

The borean blasts swept down the fleecy mantle of 
winter’s snows once more upon the city of St. Peters- 
burg, and the blue ice locked the grim jaws of the 
Neva again in its crystal grip ! 

There was feasting and pomp in the Winter Palace; 
the wild devil’s auction of the capital was on once 
more ! And, when the golden Christmas days were 
fled, Xenie Karovitch, en princesse, prepared for her 
flitting to the shores of the Euxine. 

With all a woman’s love of torturing mystery, she 
had boldly accosted the Grand Duke Anatole at a 
palace masque, on one of his brief visits to the most 
dangerous court in the world. 

The tall Romanoff was anxious to hasten back to 
the foamy blue waves of Odessa’s sapphire bay. 

He turned impatiently away from the voluptuous 
“ Venetian Lady,” whose eyes gleamed with an insid- 
ious invitation through her black velvet mask! Her 
eyes were passion-lit! 

But, other eyes, shining in serene splendor, were now 
calling him afar off to Odessa’s cliffs. 

The entourage of the white marble ballroom of the 
Winter Palace was a dangerous one for a member of 
the Imperial family, always under the eyes of a hun- 
dred spies. And so, while the superb orchestra wailed 
out a throbbing waltz, the Grand Duke Anatole sought 
some gentlemanly means of eluding the persistent 
mask who had pursued him. 

“ Only an affaire d’interet,” he mused, for he well 
knew that every woman in the great pillared ballroom 
had been examined “ sans masque,” by the chamber- 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. IO5 

lains and the officials of the Haut Police, secretly 
posted. 

He was bowing a final peremptory conge when the 
“ Venetian Lady ” whispered a few words in his ear 
which brought the hot blood surging to his passionate 
heart. 

“ Tell me, who are you? ” he imperiously demanded! 

“ One who can give you your heart’s desire! The 
only woman on earth who can aid you! ” 

The tall noble grasped her arm, huskily whispering: 
“ You shall not leave me till you have explained this! 
I must see your face! ” 

“ Only in your own rooms, Altesse,” she whispered, 
as he leaned over till the perfumed wreath of her silken 
hair swept his brow. 

“ Lift your mask — a trifle,” the Grand Duke im- 
plored. 

“ Every woman has her price,” murmured the “ Ve- 
netian Lady.” “ My price is your protection — nothing 
more — for, fear alone could hold my hand back from 
loosening the only barrier which annoys you now. 
Wraxine’s vengeance! I can disarm him! ” 

With a graceful sweep of her rounded left arm, 
Xenie, turning her head, loosened the mask for an in- 
stant. 

“ Follow me! ” hoarsely whispered the Grand Duke. 

“ And am I under your princely honor, as a guard?” 
the vicious woman muttered, her eyes gleaming 
fiercely through the loosened mask, now being daintily 
readjusted. 

“ I grant all you ask in advance, parole d’honneur, 
foi de gentilhomme! ” gravely muttered the disguised 
Grand Duke. 

He was in the somber uniform of the Black Bruns- 
wicker, and looked a magnificent Death in Life. 

He whispered a single word of direction, and then 
disappeared in the splendid crowd! 

With stately leisure, Xenie drifted through the great 
corridor, now thronged with the motley characters of 
every age and clime. 

Far across the frozen river the lights of the great 




106 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

fortress twinkled, and below, on the masonry scarped 
driveway, the sleighs were madly dashing along. 

“ Foi de gentilhomme — 1 am under the shield of his 
honor!” she moodily muttered, as she gazed around 
her. “The old, old story!” she dreamily said. 
“ Desire, Love, Delight, Despair! The same old story 
of Life and Love, of Woman’s lures, of Man’s cold in- 
humanity! The dark hours following the bright ones, 
from day to day, and, still the world runs on ! And now 
that this cold-hearted brute, Wraxine, openly spurns 
the woman who made him, I will throw myself, en 
Napoleon, on the side of the strongest battalions! ” 

With a careless glance, she turned at the foot of the 
vast corridor, and followed a gentleman in waiting, 
who whispered one keyword, “ Victory! ” as she stole 
away. 

Swiftly striding across a threshold, she disappeared 
in one of the Imperial suites of the east side, overlook- 
ing the vast Place du Palais. 

The guardian respectfully bowed and withdrew. The 
superb parlor was left vacant. She had heard the door 
click behind the retreating confidential servant. 

“ Trapped! ” she gasped. 

And then, she laughed merrily and tossed aside her 
mask, as one of the pictures on the wall deftly turned 
on a concealed vertical axis, and the Grand Duke 
Anatole stepped down from the frame! His blond 
beauty shone out on the somber dress in golden hues 
of youth. 

“ Point de compliments, ma belle amie! ” he 
brusquely said, as he stepped into the next room, clos- 
ing the door! “ There will be a ‘ petit souper a deux ’ 
served in a few moments,” cried the princely Anatole, 
as he returned, and then calmly seated himself at Xenie 
Karovitch’s side. 

“ You are now bound, en bonne camarade, to tell me 
all! And, first, what can I do for you? You must 
name it — a l’instant — for, I shall be three months at 
Odessa, inspecting the cavalry mounts of the Eighth 
Corps. 

“ And, General Baron Wraxine will be stationed 
there till April i, also inspecting, but only for the 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. I07 

Rovno Corps 1 In the meantime, General Dragono- 
vitch will command at Rovno, the winter camp ? ” 
quietly added Xenie. The Grand Duke started and 
dropped the cigarette that he was rolling. “ Pretty 
Devil, how do you find out these State secrets ? ” he 
asked, as he presented her the golden case. 

“ I am inside the lines, Altesse,” laughed Xenie. 
Anatole strode up and down the room in silence. 

“ I leave to-morrow,’’ he said. “ All must be settled 
between us to-night! ” 

“It is easily done,” resolutely answered Xenie, her 
eyes fastened gloatingly upon him. “ I will come at 
once to Odessa, with Barbe Anykoff as my camarade 
d’hiver. To carry my point, you must make me per- 
sona grata everywhere there ! And, above all, your 
Imperial Highness must obtain for me the rentree to 
this peculiar Wraxine household! The husband al- 
ready fears you. This once done, then — leave all else 
to me, remembering “ faint heart never won fair lady ! ” 

“ Ah, yes ! Toujours de l’audace ! ” murmured the 
Grand Duke. 

“ And vet, one can go too far. In the first instance 
you were coolly brutal to thrust yourself as quickly 
upon her as if she were a French gouvernante, waiting 
there, a l’improviste, for you in that old window ! ” the 
mocking woman cried. 

“ She told you ” 

“ Nothing! ” viciously replied Xenie. “ But I know 
all ! Wraxine would now abandon me, for he needs 
me no more ; and the Snow Queen has already ignored 
me ! At your side, they can not repulse me ! ” 

“ Tell me frankly what I shall do? ” cried Anatole, 
as, at the tinkle of a golden bell, he led the intrigante 
into the next room, where unseen hands had already 
arranged a dainty supper. 

“ Nay, keep the box — as a token ! ” said the Grand 
Duke, waving a hand gleaming with superb turquoises 
and diamond sparklets. 

Xenie laughed as she gazed at the golden case with 
the A. A. incrusted in superb diamonds, the jeweled 
rim of exquisite pigeon-blood rubies, lending a crim- 
son gleam to her slender white hands. 


108 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

“ Thanks, Monseigneur,” she laughed, as he knelt 
and kissed her hand. 

“ You will find Madame la Generate Barbe Anykoff 
and I, in a week, at the Hotel St. Petersbourg, in 
Odessa, voyageant en princesse. And you are to give 
a magnificent dinner for us at your own Quartier- 
General. Only the Governor-General and wife, the 
Commander of the Eighth Corps and his wife, the \ o- 
rontsoffs, the Wraxines, and Barbe and myself! You 
are to make me the special guest of honor ! ” 

The Grand Duke was watching her warily. 

“ If the Princesse Prascovie Zastrow is there, then, 
herself and young Prince Paul ! ” 

“ Et apres ? ” moodily demanded the Grand Duke. 

Xenie laughed merrily. 

“ On your insistence in further courtesies to me, the 
opera (only Barbe and I), with a few carriage tours on 
the Boulevard. I will be surely invited to visit the 
Wraxines, en famille, to avoid scandal. Barbe Any- 
lcoff will remain cozilv at the Hotel St. Petersbourg.” 

“ And then? ” growled the Duke. 

“ A week after I am in the house, you will order 
General Wraxine away into the country, and be sure 
to send Paul Zastrow with him,” she smilingly said. 
“ Keep Wraxine all winter moving from Kharkov to 
Kief, from Orenburg to Cracow.” 

“And now, to finish?” hastily cried the Grand 
Duke, an eager light gleaming in his wicked eyes. 

“ You are to visit me as often as you please at the 
Wraxines, en bon diable, when you will, how, and as 
you will.” 

The excited young man moodily said : “ On his 

return? ” 

“Bah!” sharply answered Xenie. “He is your 
creature ! It will be far too late then for any prudery — 
and you can enrage her with jealousy. She is born to 
rule ! Only Madame Anvkoff shall not be thrust upon 
her! Barbe est bien maladroite ! You shall not find 
me fail you ! ” 

There was an hour of stolen merriment in the gilded 
apartment, haunted with the gloomy heart-histories of 
a hundred daring intrigues. 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 109 

“ No ! no, ma belle amie ! You are not to brave the 
eyes of the curious to-night,” said Anatole, when the 
midnight bells boomed out from the great polygon. 

In ten minutes, the Grand Duke’s own sleigh was at 
the private side postern, and Xenie, wrapped in a great 
pelisse of Imperial sables, laughed as they skimmed 
over the frozen snow, the troika bells ringing out 
on the crystalline air. 

“ You are a fit heiress of Lucrezia Borgia and Bi- 
anca Capello,” laughed the crafty Imperial Prince. 

“ I am only your poor handmaiden,” demurely 
smiled Xenie, “ but, the peri at the gate of your bonnes 
fortunes.” 

“ And now, give me all your further commands, till I 
meet you in Odessa ! ” whispered Anatole, as the sleigh 
dashed up to the door of the Maison Kriloff. 

“ I shall send you an Imperial order for a special 
train to and fro, and my own courier. II se chargera 
de toutes les depenses ! ” 

“ Only find out Barbe in the ball,” laughed Xenie. 
“ She is one Undine of many, but, with three silver 
stars on her bosom, and our password, ‘ Sapho,’ you 
can recognize her. Here are my billets de surete ! 
She is to bring all my furs and wraps ! Tell her I wait 
for her to-night in her own room ! ” 

“And, your pelisse, mon Prince?” laughed Xenie. 

“ I never take back presents! ” laughed the Grand 
Duke. 

“ Then, I shall come and breakfast with Barbe in her 
apartment to-morrow. She is never to know of our 
compact ! And you must be there ! I am under the 
shield of your honor,” softly said Xenie. “ You may 
demand even my life — while you cover me from 
harm.” 

As she tripped up the marble stair, the Grand Duke 
drove gayly away. 

“ Sister of the Devil,” he muttered ; “ but, I have 
need of her. There is but one way to handle women — 
make them trap each other ! ” 

And, while the stars swept on high above Marie 
Wraxine at far-away Odessa, her enemies sharpened 


no 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


their swords in the night, and Xenie laughed over her 
last present of the royal sable pelisse. 

Two days later, an Imperial courier handed two 
muffled voyagers of distinction into the Grand Duke’s 
own private train. 

None of the dwellers in the Maison Kriloff knew of 
the dashing Xenie’s destination, and only Alexandre 
Kalomine shared the secrets of the passionate heart 
which now ruled him. 

Dupe and devotee, his own heart bounded as Xenie 
said : “ I shall be free from all the toils of the past 

when I return ! ” 

The Director of the Imperial Bank murmured his 
adieu : “ Let no one come between us. What is 

rank ? A mere bagatelle — the fool’s gold of society ! 
But, you shall secretly reign over these people here 
with me — on a pyramid of that gold for which kings 
cringe, and even coy beauty learns to bend its haughty 
head ! ” 

“ There is but one who has come between us, Alex- 
andre,” replied Xenie. “ It is that grim iron King, 
Fate, and when I have tasted the one cup sweeter than 
Love’s chalice — my revenge — I will come back to 
you ! ” 

“ Be my wife, Xenie,” begged Kalomine. 

“ Only if I am free to love you as I would,” she whis- 
pered. “ For our hearts have spoken too late ! I dare 
not now be your wife. Wraxine would kill me — for — 
he fears me ! But, if I am his conqueror, then do with 
me as you will ! It is a battle to the death ; and I must 
fight it out, unaided. But I shall win ! ” 

On past the birch-fringed frozen lakes, on through 
gloomy, wolf-haunted forests, past log villages, now 
buried deep in snow ; over cheerless, frozen steppes, 
the train glided along, flying southward as the swallow 
goes, or the keen-eyed stork winging his way across 
the Greek sea to Phike’s golden calm. 

It suited the Baroness Xenie to be demurely quiet, 
and so, Barbe Anykot'f glanced at the priceless pelisse 
of sables and wondered over the unwritten story of that 
masque ball at the Winter Palace. 

No explanation was vouchsafed as the cheerless 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


Ill 


Kherson steppes were crossed — only the curious 
Barbe knew that the Baroness Karovitch was specially 
favored by some august protecting influence. 

For, when the train at last halted in la Grande Gare 
of Odessa, four days after leaving the Neva, there was 
an adjutant and a maitre d’hotel awaiting the voyagers. 

A superb britska, with footman and coachman in a 
plain, rich livery, awaited them. 

Madame Anykoff sighed in happy contentment as 
she gazed on the brigiit, beautiful city of four hundred 
thousand circling the chalky cliffs of the Euxine. 
There was no snow on the ground ; the fresh breeze 
drifting in from the blue sea below had a spicy hint of 
the Isles of Greece. 

By some one’s order, the carriage traversed the 
splendid Boulevard from the Place du Theatre to the 
northern end ! 

There were hundreds of loungers walking under the 
four ranks of splendid trees, and dozens of carriages 
filled with the bright-browed aristocrats of Muscovy ! 

But the lively melange of the streets at once attract- 
ed the eye. 

Arab, Circassian, sly Hebrew, grave Turk, dapper 
Frenchman, and lazy Russian officials* punctuated 
with beautiful women and ogling officers. All this 
made up a new coup d’oeil. For, Odessa is the Russian 
Marseilles. 

Suddenly, as they passed the Governor-General’s 
Palace, where the grim sentinels were posted, an offi- 
cer leaned out from a passing carriage and bowed 
stiffly. 

The crimson leaped to Xenie Karovitch ’s face, for 
Excellence Baroness Marie Wraxine herself had af- 
fected not to observe the two visiting beauties ! Only 
the General had bowed ! 

It was only when the “ Venetian Lady ” was ushered 
into her splendid boudoir that she safely gave vent to 
her anger. 

The Adjutant had whispered : “ His Highness will 
do you the honor to dine with you, informally, at 
eight ! All the arrangements are made ! The maitre 


1 1 2 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


d’hotel has a carte blanche, and the carriage and serv- 
ants will await yonr daily orders.” 

“ Blessed magic of gold ! ” murmured Baroness 
Xenie as she directed her maid to prepare her most 
bewitching demi-toilette ! 

“ As for this frozen star, Marie, she shall pay me 
now, to the uttermost farthing ! ” 

During the entre actes of the opera the news of the 
arrival of the two St. Petersburg beauties was eagerly 
discussed in a dozen boxes. 

His Highness the Grand Duke was laughing over 
Baroness Xenie’s witty sallies in the boudoir, a ver- 
itable bower of roses now ; for Madame Barbe had 
pleaded “ headache ” and slipped away when the satur- 
nine General Wraxine, at the opera, returned Prince 
Paul Zastrow’s grave salute. 

The young Aid-de-Camp bowed to Madame Wrax- 
ine, in silence, as he delivered the official envelope bear- 
ing the seal of the Grand Duke. 

The Corps Commander’s face flushed crimson as he 
handed the invitation to his peerlessly beautiful wife. 

“ Acceptance is de rigueur,” he murmured. “ We 
must go! What brings her down here? Shall you 
call on her? ” 

And then, clear as crystal, came Marie Wraxine’s 
icy answer : “ It is for Madame Karovitch to make 

me the first visit ! ” 

Across the gilded semicircle, Madame la Princesse 
Zastrow was now curiously eyeing the pair of illv-as- 
sorted wedded lovers ! 

“ What can all this mean ? ” she murmured. “ I wish 
that Paul had fixed his heart on the Lazienski or the 
Potocki ! Here I am, the social drama on, and I bound 
for Sorrento, and* the Corps Commander and Paul are 
suddenly ordered to the steppes — in midwinter ! ” 

Before another week glided away, the Grand Duke’s 
magnificent feast had given to Baroness Xenie a seal 
of Imperial approval. 

Some softening influence had melted Marie Wrax- 
ine’s icy heart, for Xenie Karovitch, graceful, charm- 
ing, and tender, was now the home guest of the Wrax- 
ines ! 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 113 

In a sudden terror, the Corps Commander whispered 
to his wife : “ We can not hold aloof from the Grand 

Duke’s friend. She must be received ! ” 


CHAPTER VII. 

ANOTHER FALLEN STAR. 

The old, old story ! The serpent, in graceful guise, 
had entered the peaceful solitude of the stately home of 
the Wraxines. And, that anxious mother, the Prin- 
cess Prascovie Zastrow, was on her way to Sorrento, 
Uneasy at heart, some days before, with a lowering 
brow, the astonished Corps Commander, General 
Wraxine, read the telegraphed orders of the War Min- 
ister detaching him and his chief aid for a long and mi- 
nute inspection of the haras, to choose the fifteen thou- 
sand specially selected horses for the Rovno corps 
d’armee. 

It was superbly done, this little “ tour de force ” of 
the Baroness Xenie, in gliding in between the absent 
husband and the proud wife. 

And for a week before Baron Wraxine’s departure 
the Grand Duke toiled with the Corps Commander in 
his library daily, only attended by his confidential aid, 
Prince Paul Zastrow. It was an intimate household 
entree. 

And there had been a formal diner de ceremonie 
given by the departing Corps Commander, where only 
the Vorontzoffs, the Grand Duke, and the Governor- 
General and his family were admitted to the circle 
where the unwelcome Xenie Karovitch was now the 
velvet-eved Mephisto. 

With a secret jealousy, Michel Wraxine saw the hid- 
den adoration of the Imperial Grand Duke for the 
woman whom he had coldly dropped as a useless tool 
—a forgotten tov — and now, shamefaced in his fear, 
the general caught Xenie’s hand, as he passed a tap- 


1 14 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

estry-hung portiere, in the dusky shadows, on the night 
of the dinner. 

With one sad glance of appealing tenderness, and 
twinkling tears of regret, the sly beauty stole silently 
away ! 

“ Great God ! She knows all ! ” was Wraxine’s last 
conscience-stricken thought. “ And a single word, a 
mere dumb show of treason, could hurl me down ! ” 

He went out on his sudden quest, so deftly ordered 
from St. Petersburg, not daring to tell his stately wife 
of the storm which raged in his bosom ! He had not 
ever dared to attempt again a rapprochement, and 
long before he reached Kharkov, the Grand Duke, 
prudently suave and impassive, had taken up the pur- 
suit of the beautiful Marie, whom he now sought with 
the patient, dogging tread of the untiring wolf. 

And the treacherous Baroness Xenie, before a fort- 
night was past, had skillfully exhibited Madame Wrax- 
ine tete-a-tete with the Grand Duke in a dozen public 
functions. 

With artful craft, she often glided away to spend her 
long afternoons with Madame Anvkoff, now ruling her 
own Court of Love, and so, Marie Wraxine, obedient 
to her frightened husband’s strict injunctions, dared 
not close the door to the Imperial visitor. 

High souled and loyal, she had been touched by 
Xenie Karovitch’s seemingly generous conduct in 
deftly ignoring the total breach ! 

And so, both the plotter and the victim-to-be, 
warmed themselves in the wintry glory of the Grand 
Duke’s smiles. 

A hundred hyena tongues were at once busied with 
the growing scandal, and only Marie Wraxine was 
deaf to the whispered murmurs as she swept serenely 
on through a Horde of envious enemies. 

The mad impulses of the winter fetes now turned 
Odessa into a moral whirlpool. The broad avenues 
were crowded with rich carriages ; the clubs, mansions, 
and restaurants were thronged with polyglot revelers. 

Greek, Turk, Asiatic, Frenchman, pleasure-loving 
Austrian, stolid German — all crowded cafe and the- 
ater. 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. I15 

Only in the great mansions, the superb opera, the 
official halls, and the stately drawing-rooms, the 
haughty Russian army and navy officers, the reckless 
nobles, and the swarming aristocrats, led their life of 
wild social daring and reckless intrigue. 

The presence of the Grand Duke and his brilliant 
staff excited the local aristocracy to a display never 
known since the great Catherine sent the fiery Due de 
Richelieu down to found a seaside metropolis on the 
lonely shore, to-day only outdone in wealth and riot 
by pleasure-loving Marseilles. 

The Easter days were drifting on. Already the 
steamers from Constantinople were bearing in the rich 
first fruits of the perennial spring of the Greek sea. 

And while this Dance of Life went on, General 
Wraxine was still hurrying from one interior station 
to another. 

His stern face, alone, was missed from the splendid 
festivities of the riotous social season. But, he felt a 
growing terror as he looked forward to the return to 
Rovno for the spring maneuvers, as the new construc- 
tions would call him back to his vast command. 

Too well he knew that each changing order from the 
War Department had its secret origin in some hidden 
enemy at Odessa. 

In vain he tortured his weary heart! He had sev- 
eral times sent the young Prince Paul Zastrow down to 
the White City on the Euxine Bay, and yet the messen- 
ger had gleaned no tidings of import ! 

Madame Barbe Anykoff was now queening it as a 
guest of the Russian Ambassador in Constantinople. 

The Princess Prascovie Zastrow was still lingering 
under the silvery green of the Sorrento olive groves, 
and the Baroness Xenie calmly held her place as a 
perfunctory guest in the Wraxine household. 

The letters of his enigmatic wife were as pulseless 
as the flow of water under the ice. Too well Wraxine 
now knew that only the bitter jibe of dependence had 
forced the daughter of Demetrius Kriloff unwillingly 
into his arms as a passionless sacrifice at the grim altar 
of Necessity. 

And Xenie, the wild-hearted woman whom he had 


Il6 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

once ruled as with a rod of iron, she was now socially 
impregnable in her position, for the Grand Duke 
seemed to be drifting under her influence more and 
more every day. 

What unfathomable design lurked in Xenie’s stormy 
soul? He knew not! And — he feared to question 
Paul Zastrow. 

The young Aid-de-Camp himself was haggard of 
mien and gloomy of heart ! An adept in every in- 
trigue of court, boudoir, and camp, Zastrow knew 
that some fatal play was on, and that it was for stakes 
of heart and soul ; that Michel Wraxine was a mere 
hoodwinked exile, and that Marie, the pale beauty who 
now ruled his own dreams, now moved helplessly, a 
Una among the lions. 

Paul Zastrow had watched the faces of the players 
of the great game in vain ! On his brief Odessa visits 
of duty he had gazed furtively at them all, lingering 
around the glittering table. 

Baroness Xenie’s velvet eyes gave no sign ! Most 
of all around her, she feared the sharp-eyed young 
Aid-de-Camp. 

The Grand Duke’s face was haughtily inscrutable, 
and Marie Wraxine, tco. possessed her soul in calm ! 

There had been no violent scandal, and as yet only a 
frightened hush followed the passing of that queenly 
form, the stately presence of the woman whom he mad- 
ly adored in secret. 

“ Her proud heart still sleeps,” mused the fiery Paul. 
“ There is mystery here, and the shadow of a com- 
ing tragedy ! ” 

Zastrow had resolutely ignored any social gossip, 
and in his attendance upon his stern Corps Command- 
er went about his duty — “ ohne hast ohne rast ! ” 

And. yet, the sweet face of Marie Wraxine haunted 
him in the silent night ; it followed him over the cheer- 
less, snowy Kherson prairies, and he saw it always in 
his dreams while drifting on the broad Volga. 

But one warning sign had he noted at Odessa. 

In his sudden entree of the Cercle de Noblesse, the 
supper rooms of the Hotel du Nord, the cafe of the 
Hotel de l’Europe, in the gilded alcoves of the Palais 


THE SHIELD OF HlS HONOR. 117 

Royal, his own coming had suddenly cut off all 
chatter. 

In the opera foyer, in the anterooms of the Gover- 
nor-General — every gay flaneur — all the dashing staff 
officers prudently dropped the unfinished story until 
his departure. 

And now too well he knew that the veiled reign 
of the Grand Duke — through the velvet-eyed devil lo- 
cated in General Wraxine’s own home — was one of a 
cruel and luxurious social abandon. 

In vain Prince Paul wandered alone around Odessa ; 
all were his enemies, for there w r as wealth and patron- 
age to be gained at the Grand Duke’s hands. 

The high financiers, the money-stuffed bourgeois, 
the careless Figaros of fashion, all avoided the young 
aid. No one cared to raise the warning voice. 

The gay city only waited now for summer, when 
the Parc Alexandre, the luxurious bath houses, the 
alleys of Lustdorf, the groves of Maly-Fontan, and all 
the hundred hiding-places of lovers, would be given up 
to the mad votaries of Pleasure ! 

“ And, after all,” desperately cried Paul Zastrow, 
“ it’s only another fallen star ! Let him find it out for 
himself! There is too fierce a light blazing around 
the Imperial throne for me to brave ! ” 

And so, he hailed, with a secret joy, the day when he 
received his orders to send on his chargers and serv- 
ants to Rovno for the spring maneuvers. 

The fifteen thousand horses had at last been duly se- 
lected and inspected, the ice was fast leaving the roll- 
ing hills around the great camp, and fifty thousand 
armed men, casting off the winter lethargy, began to 
pour out of the heavy log huts where they had hiber- 
nated. The Russian Bear was stretching out his fro- 
zen paws ! 

The release came at last, and Prince Paul Zastrow’s 
heart beat high as he rode down the Boulevard, at the 
head of General Wraxine’s assembled staff, when the 
formal orders for the opening of the Rovno camp, 
after Easter, recalled the stern, winter- worn General 
to the last conferences of the two Corps Commanders 
and the Imperial Inspector at Odessa. 


IlS THE SHlfcLD OF HIS HONOR. 

The tender leaves of spring were timidly budding 
out on the grand Boulevard, and the great white arms 
of the Port, stretching out into the bosom of the blue 
bay. grasped hundreds of ships, swarming with merry 
sailors. 

The chatter and bustle of the great man was on once 
more, and crowds thronged the magnificent escalier 
descending to the Port, three hundred feet below the 
embattled mansions of the great Boulevard. 

Prince Paul had saluted his General at the threshold 
of his mansion, receiving his order to dine daily with 
his chief, and to take sole charge now of the assembled 
Corps Staff, gathered in an official headquarters hard 
by. 

It was only when the young noble read the sheaf of 
letters handed over to him at General Headquarters 
that he began to see the veil lifting from the long win- 
ter's hidden intrigues. 

From far-away Sorrento, the startled Princess Pras- 
covie Zastrow laid upon her only son a solemn injunc- 
tion. 

“ I am coming home as soon as Russia's icy arms are 
opened to me. My first duty shall be to have you 
transferred at once to another Corps ! I shall ask it as 
a personal favor of the Czar himself! For I dare not 
tell you what I have heard! Von. my son. are the 
First Aid-de-Camp and Chief of the Corps Staff ! Be- 
ware of anv further household intimacy with the ladies 
of General Wraxine’s family! To you they are — thev 
must be — sacred 1 For you are sworn to hold up the 
shield of his honor! There is safety only in silence! 
And now. I come to save you from the maelstrom ! 
\ou have been designedly exiled all winter! Hold 
off your hand ! For. the play is almost played out ! 
And another plays the game — one whose cold resent- 
ment could crush us all ! You must leave this Corps 
at once ! " 

A daring social free lance, a reckless duelist, a young 
paladin to whom no feat of arms was impossible. Paul 
Zastrow was a typical child of patriarchial Russia. He 
sat mutely day by dav at General Wraxine’s table, and 
mutely watched the brilliant entourage. There was a 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. II9 

vivid glow on Xenie Karovitch’s cheek, a gleam of 
coming triumph shining in her eyes, which did not es- 
cape Zastrow, who easily marked the softened and al- 
most submissive manner of the General toward his 
strangely vivacious guest. 

And Madame Wraxine? Her star-like eyes shone 
out serenely, her habitual armor of an exquisite cour- 
tesy toward all masking every feeling of her lonely 
heart. Decidedly, “ une femme incomprise ! ” 

The strange social quiet of the splendid household 
affected Zastrow with the premonition of a coming 
storm. 

The brooding peace was as of the silent forest when 
every trembling leaf is stilled, and only, at the last, a 
few straggling, sudden drops tell of the coming deluge, 
before the giant oaks are rended. 

But, in the joyous peal of the Easter bells, all was 
seemingly forgotten ! The orders were already out 
for the transfer of the Corps Headquarters and Staff. 

Prince Zastrow, ever eager hearted, had plunged 
into all the wild excitements of the happy Easter 
holidays, only waiting for the arrival of the Princess 
Prascovie, who, by easy stages, was now coming on 
from Sorrento to Warsaw. The young Prince, per- 
force, deferred to his mother, to whom a wise father 
had left the bulk of the Zastrow fortunes, only to be 
delivered over to the young soldier at the age of thirty. 

And so, at twenty-four, Paul Zastrow found the 
stream of coveted gold only trickling into his eager 
grasp through the firm, white hands of the spirited 
Princess. A wise precaution — it had been his only 
salvation so far. 

The very last of the magnificent fetes of the holiday 
season was the superb ball at which the proud General 
Wraxine made his adieu to the golden circle of luxu- 
rious Odessa’s aristocrats. 

For a week, the Grand Duke, at his headquarters, 
had been closeted with the Governor-General and the 
two southern Corps Commanders, in making general 
plans, and the Eighth Corps was already thrown out 
into its advanced stations. 

The magnificent rooms of the Wraxine mansion 


120 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


were, on this evening, thronged with the secretly cu- 
rious aristocrats, who had followed the whole winter 
the unsolved mysteries of the Grand Duke’s singular 
patronage of the dashing Baroness Xenie Karovitch, 
a mere bird of passage ! 

Paul Zastrow had dined, on this festal day, at the 
Staff Officers’ Club, and, in the splendid uniform of 
his high rank, now led the assembled staff in to support 
the stately General Baron Wraxine in the reception 
of the assembled patricians. 

The young Prince marked with surprise the absence 
of the Baroness Xenie Karovitch when Madam j 
W raxine took up her station with her stern-faced hus- 
band at the head of the great hall. 

“ It is well,” he murmured. “ This strange woman, 
Xenie, has effaced herself prudently. Nothing can hap- 
pen now ! For in two days we leave for Rovno. Mad- 
ame Karovitch will soon return to St. Petersburg, and 
so, the long comedy is over. I fear a tragedy no more 
— only the wornout comedy of hollow hearts and vain 
pleasures ! ” 

Paul laughed light heartedly at the dextrous man- 
ner in which la Baronne Karovitch had avoided facing 
the gossip of her hundred enemies and thus giving 
many opportunities for any public social revenge by 
the haughty aristocrats of southern Russia. 

“ It is a fine hand, this little woman,” he mused, as 
he saw the splendid circle rapidly gathering in the vast 
salons. 

“ She avoids the issue — and, most gracefully ! ” 

But one lingering suspicion of any coming trouble 
rested in Zastrow’s mind. He alone knew from Baron 
Orloff, the Grand Duke’s factotum, that the special 
train had arrived to take Baroness Xenie back to the 
Neva, and that Madame Barbe Anykoff, now returning 
from Constantinople, was already nested at the Hotel 
de Petersbourg. 

The sheen of silks, the gleam of bright eyes, the 
glitter of diamonds, the low, happy laughter of women, 
and all the kaleidoscopic splendor of the season’s 
crowning ball, now filled the rooms ; and yet: — the 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR- 


12 1 


Prince Paul Zastrow looked around in vain for Mad- 
ame Xenie Karovitch. 

Whispers already filled the remote corners of the 
drawing-rooms as the music, pealing out in the great 
ballroom, drew the graceful youth of the Euxine 
Paris to the witching dance. 

“ The Grand Duke comes not ” — the ominous mur- 
murs rapidly went round ; and a purple flush darkened 
Michel Wraxine’s angry face as he stood at the head 
of the hall in waiting with his peerless wife ! 

It was a long half an hour of agonizing suspense to 
the tortured Corps Commander ! 

And yet, only he, of the whole brilliant assembly, 
knew that the public disgrace of the Grand Duke's so- 
cial ostracism would mean to him a final ruin — perhaps 
even the discovery of his huge peculations, perhaps an 
awful ending — the shameful exile to Siberia. 

A hundred hearts were thrilled with an electric shock 
as the music suddenly crashed out into the Russian 
National Hymn. 

The great doors were thrown wide open as His Im- 
perial Highness the Grand Duke Anatole entered the 
room, followed by his superb staff ! There were gasps 
of surprise, as, on his arm, dressed with an exquisite 
simplicity, Madame la Baronne Xenie Karovitch glid- 
ed along in a demure silence ! But Paul Zastrow stood 
transfixed in a sudden shock, as, following the Imperial 
guest, the first Aid, Baron Orloff, escorted Madame la 
Generate Barbe Anykoff ! General Wraxine’s face re- 
laxed in a frightful convulsion ! 

There was the stillness of death as the tall Grand 
Duke strode along bowing smilingly right and left to 
the guests, who had all respectfully turned and faced 
the Prince, as one born in the Imperial purple. 

And the malicious Barbe Anvkoff’s eyes were dis- 
creetly dropped, but Xenie Karovitch, with a sweet 
composure, gazed frankly in the eyes of Michel Wrax- 
ine as she bowed, with a deferential modesty. 

Paul Zastrow gazed in amazement at the circle of 
guests now hushed into a frightened expectancy by 
the appearance under the roof of the Corps Command- 


122 


THE SHIELD OF HiS HONOR. 


er, of Madame Anykoff, whose presence in Odessa had 
been coldly ignored by the beautiful hostess. 

General Michel Wraxine was a brave man. but he 
shuddered as he saw the sudden pallor which froze his 
beautiful wife into a marble statue. 

With a stately grace. Marie bowed low before the 
Grand Duke, and then extended her hand to Xettie 
Karovitch. 

But, the bow which singled out Baron Orloff left the 
defeated Barbe Anykoff pilloried in a quiet shame ! 

General Wraxine, with ready aplomb, broke up the 
line, stepping between his silent wife and the Grand 
Duke’s glittering staff. 

“The dancing only awaits Your Highness!” said 
Wraxine, his face paler than its wont. 

And then, with a courteous bow, the Grand Duke 
possessed himself of Madame Marie Wraxine. 

“ It is for the hostess to open the ball,” suavely re- 
marked Anatole, the watchful. 

With a violent effort, Marie controlled herself. 

And then scores of eves followed the agitated beauty 
as she glided into the graceful groupings of the wail- 
ing waltz, which sounded but faintly in her ear. 

The whole room seemed reeling around her! 

With one last glance she had noted the adroit Prince 
Paul Zastrow bowing over Xeriie Karovitch’s slender 
white-gloved hand, and in an instant they were ming- 
ling with the dancers. It was well done — rand it broke 
up the spell of the malignant gossips. 

A throb of gratitude stirred Michel Wraxine’s 
heart as he noted Paul Zastrow’s quick-witted action. 

The quick-witted Baron Orloff was now guiding 
Barbe Anykoff s blond beauty along through the whirl 
and so — the Corps Commander turned away, relieved, 
but sick at heart, leaving the two gorgeous staffs to 
break up in search of. the fairest of the would-be dan- 
cers! The revel was fairly on! And, standing alone 
bv a recessed window, Michel Wraxine now vainly 
strove to read the riddle of the astounding socia] ef- 
frontery of the reckless Xenie Katovitch ! The moody 
General knew now that he had not a single loyal friend 
in the wide world ! 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 123 

And Xenie — her placid face had given no sign of 
triumph. But the forced presence of Barbe Anykoff 
was an open declaration of war ! He vainly strove to 
read the riddle of their sudden departure for St. Peters- 
burg and the mystery-born aversion of Madame Any- 
koff to her old friend, his wife. But the undeniable 
support of the Grand Duke, the dazzling entree of the 
two women — this alarmed him. He felt that the crisis 
of his life had arrived ! And so, with all those curious 
eyes upon him, he sauntered away into a tapestried 
recess. “ I must see her alone to-night, or else I am 
lost.” 

He dared trust no one now ! Paul Zastrow — there 
was a loyal soul ! And, when Wraxine moved toward 
the ballroom, he saw the young Prince forming the 
lines for a gay mazurka. “ His wife ! ” 

Ah ! There she was, seated with the Grand Duke, 
bowing in a stately salutation de ceremonie over the 
waltz. 

The disloyal husband never knew of the whispered 
words which cut the Grand Duke like a whiplash ! 
“You have broken your word of honor! You have 
not spared a dead soldier’s sister ! ” 

For, Marie Wraxine’s heart had leaped up in one 
mad rebellion against all the duplicity around her ! 

Too late she saw how she had been helplessly 
dragged into a daily public intercourse with a pitiless 
intriguer, a man who had brought, this night, her most 
bitter enemy into her house to effect an open disgrace ! 

“ And, now that the chase is on, he will hound me 
down ! ” she bitterly murmured. 

The slender pearl fan in her hands snapped under 
the pressure of her nervous fingers ! 

From her seat, she could look out on the sea and 
see the great steamers gliding out on the misty blue 
zone below, their golden lights gleaming high at their 
mastheads, the red and green flashing on either quar- 
ter ! 

“ My God !*for peace, in some far land over the sea — 
for the" quiet of the grave — or else, a Lethe under those 
darkened waves,” she murmured in despair. 


124 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


Surrounded by bowing cavaliers, she held her state- 
ly court of silent sorrow in that peopled wilderness ! 

Help there was none! Her husband? When 
Xenie Karovitch was forced into the mansion by the 
Grand Duke’s thinly veiled intrigue, Marie, lonely- and 
abandoned at last, knew the fearful cost of her barren 
escape from actual poverty. 

' There had been a wall built up between husband 
and wife, and the General — a moral coward at heart — 
dared not face Xenie frankly, or boldly defend the 
honor of his hearth. His soul was forfeit ! 

And Marie now well knew the dexterity with which 
the fatal social stab had been administered — this last 
crowning public disgrace! Her eyes wandered over 
the room as she sat, declining all invitations to the 
dance. The Grand Duke was in the whirl of pleasure. 
He had brought the two women as if to an open casino. 
Madame Anykoff was vulgarly and insolently gay. 

Marie Wraxine caught the furtive glances of Paul 
Zastrow’s burning eyes, and then dropped her own ! 
“ He knows of this infamy — he has seen all ! ” the love- 
ly orphan mused. 

And then, her bosom swelled in a mad, fierce thirst 
for revenge ! An unreasoning fury possessed her soul 
now ! 

Only to pull down this glittering card house of so- 
cial hypocrisy upon the heads of all her hidden foes ! 

Pride was now her only sentinel, for she knew that 
hundreds of hostile eyes were upon her, and she 
scorned even to seek out her enemy, Xenie Karovitch, 
in all that splendid throng. 

“ They shall not see me suffer!*” she resolved, with 
a strange, silent rage filling her heart. 

With a haughty determination, she only waited now 
for her revenge, at any cost ; and none of the revelers 
ever marked even the quiver of a lip. 

But, in that single hour, the unloosed passions of a 
fearless nature raged sovereign in her stormy heart. 

“ There comes the morning soon,” she murmured. 
“ Wait — wait! I shall find the easiest way to my re- 
venge ! ” 

With the music beating in his ears, General Wraxine 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


125 


had stolen away for a few moments to his library, leav- 
ing the gay rout below, to ask himself in what way he 
could compass a last secret meeting with Xenie Karo- 
vitch. 

Prince Zastrow had spoken to the General, by mere 
chance, of the special train now in waiting to take 
Baroness Xenie and her reckless ally, the Anykoff, 
back to the Neva. 

And in a glance he fancied that he now saw the 
veiled mechanism of the secret orders which had kept 
him so long out on the steppe all winter. 

“ She is only the spy of the Grand Duke,” he mut- 
tered, “ and I must win her over — or else buy her si- 
lence!” 

He was facing these gloomy alternatives, when he 
saw a lithe form glide by his door. 

His heart bounded as he leaped madly forward. 

It was Xenie Karovitch stealing into Madame 
Wraxine’s boudoir, adjoining his own library. 

He had not even heard her light foot upon the stair ! 

And, resolutely entering the room, he closed the 
door, for the mockery of the music below maddened 
him. 

With a start of feigned surprise, the victorious Xenie 
turned and gazed into that well-known face, so strange- 
ly haggard. 

“ You here, Michel ! ” she gasped. 

“ I must speak to you ! I must know your heart ! ” 
he hoarsely cried. 

The beautiful witch pointed to the dressing-room 
adjoining, with its open door draped only with a thick 
Persian portiere. 

The General explored the adjoining interior. 

“ No one,” he muttered, as he returned to find Xenie 
sitting awaiting him with her telltale eyes covered with 
her slender hands. The panther was ready to spring! 

There was that in his eyes which smote Xenie, brave 
as she was, with a sudden fear. “ You go away to- 
morrow,” he said. 

And the artful woman saw in his eyes that he now 
knew all her past duplicity ! 


126 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

She sat silently listening as the tortured General 
poured out his stormy heart imaginings. 

There was a delicious sense of triumph in Xenie 
Karovitch’s heart! It was sweet to drink in the self- 
abasing words of the man befpre whom fifty thousand 
trembled ; the man who had long been an iron-hearted 
ruler to her ; the man who would have thrust her out 
to starve when he hoped that the girl-wife, won by a 
taunt of misery, would be as wax in his hands ! 

Spurred on by a sudden intuition, the beautiful host- 
ess, now on her guard, had at last noted the absence of 
the velvet-eyed Xenie ! 

And so, on the arm of Prince Vorontsoff, she had 
made the whole circuit of the grand drawing-rooms. 
She read the riddle, for the stately form of Michel 
Wraxine was not visible! 

True, the Grand Duke and Madame Barbe Anykoff 
were now the center of a glittering ring, but those 
whom she sought were not in the merry throng below ! 

Stealing through a side entrance, Marie Wraxine, 
with a bitter smile of self-contempt, glided up the pri- 
vate stairway. 

Like a wraith, she flitted across the broad upper cor- 
ridor and noiselessly gained the private entrance to her 
own apartments. 

Her light foot made no sound on the floor of her 
dressing-room, padded deep with its costly Persian 
rugs. 

In her heart now raged only a mad desire for in- 
stant vengeance. 

When she heard the first words of the forgetful 
schemers who once would have sold her to shame, she 
blindly cast away all thoughts of the past — all care for 
her future ! 

For Michel Wraxine was basely pleading in a pas- 
sionate frenzy to the woman who had so brutally be- 
trayed her and would have sold her, helpless, to the 
man who had quivered under the scorn of her whis- 
pered words there ; n the crowded ballroom. Xenie 
was only the Grand Duke’s harem guardian ! 

The panther was playing now with the helpless 
wretch in her claws. 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


127 


There had been murmured words which Marie could 
not hear, but her heart swelled in a mad rage, when 
Xenie at last threw off the mask. 

“ And now you plead to me — you, Michel Wraxine 
— when you tried to thrust me out of your life ! You, 
who have used this pale-faced, pauper beauty only as 
a bait to the Grand Duke! You married her only to 
sell her to him in the safe shame of a safe complai- 
sance ! You know it — the whole world knows it! 
And, know now, that I am the friend of your money- 
master! The great Necker looks to me to shield him 
through the Grand Duke’s favor! Your swindling 
partnership is only safe in my hands because the Grand 
Duke is my friend ! He is not too proud to kneel be- 
fore the woman whom you cast off! You were my 
lover for years ! One word from me, and you would 
be stripped of the baubles gleaming there on your coat ! 
And I have loved you so ! You, a man and a soldier, 
to thrust out the woman in whose arms a hundred 
times you vowed a life’s fidelity ! Do you remember 
your oaths at Tiflis when you sent me to trap this raw 
girl as a prey to tlife Grand Duke’s wandering fancy? 
You have bought your command cheaply wi.th her 
promised smiles ! 

“ And, while ybu love me no more, you shall learn 
to fear me now! Do you wish me to tell her? Now 
you know why I have returned to your household; 
you dare not ignore the Grand Duke's friend — and — 
she shall not ! The Grand Duke shall feast his fancy 
to the full ! ” 

There was a frenzied woman, with murder in her 
heart, listening, spellbound, on the other side of the 
portiere, when the abject Michel Wraxine, on his 
knees, covered Xenie Katovitch’s hands with kisses. 

“ Hear me,” he begged. “ You shall rule — you shall 
be the Oueen of Rovno! Come back to me ! There 
— let me only love you as before ! Xenie, I swear that 

you shall work your will ! Tell the Grand Duke ” 

He was saved utter degradation, for there was a star- 
tling knock at the library door ! 

Marie — half stunned — had only time to hide herself 
in the folds of the huge portiere as Xenie Karovitch 


128 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


glided out past her, stumbling along in the dark room. 

The victorious intrigante knew every winding of the 
vast mansion, and she was standing laughing in the 
doorway of the reception-rooms long before General 
Wraxine; in the lonely library, gazed in speechless si- 
lence at a telegram handed to him by his Aid-de-Camp, 
Prince Paul Zastrow. 

“ His Highness’ compliments. Sudden orders, 
General ! ” was the young noble’s formal salutation. 
“ And, His Highness desires to speak with you at 
once.” 

There was only the sound of the retreating footsteps 
of the two men as Marie Wraxine stole into her de- 
serted boudoir. 

With unfaltering steps she swiftly locked the doors 
into the library, the doors to the main corridor, and 
then gazed long at herself in the cheval glass. 

And there, in the silence of her own apartment, 
Marie Wraxine forever took leave of her old self! 

Seizing a taper, she lighted all the candles in her 
dressing-room. 

No sound escaped her lips as she gazed around the 
familiar apartment. 

There, on the fauteuil where Xenie Karovitch had 
been coldly plotting the sale of a soul, lay a filmy lace 
handkerchief broidered with the telltale coronet and X. 

“ Under this flag she betrays — the white flag of 
peace,” grimly muttered Marie Wraxine. 

She grasped it and then swept grandly down the 
main marble staircase to the supper-rooms. 

The Intendant, bowing low, whispered to the stately 
beauty : “ The General has been searching for you 

everywhere. The banquet is soon to begin, and the 
General is closeted with the Grand Duke.” 

Marie Wraxine lifted her steady eyes and saw stand- 
ing before her, in the main reception hall, the woman 
who had betrayed her, both before and after the fatal 
marriage. 

There was a circle of eager gallants around Xenie ; 
they saw nothing as Madame Wraxine approached, 
but, Xenie Karovitch shuddered when she met the 
glance of the young wife’s eyes. 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 129 

Without a word, the hostess handed the startled 
Xenie the bit of embroidered lace, and then silently 
turned away, as Prince Paul Zastrow hastened toward 
her. 

“ There has been a fierce riot between the soldiers 
and peasantry at Rovno,” whispered the young Aid. 
“ The General leaves in two hours, on a special train. 
It is to me that he leaves the duty of bringing on the 
household. He asked me to conduct you to him in the 
special reception-room. His Highness does not wish 
to spoil the fete.” 

As they moved down the crowded hall murmurs fol- 
lowed them — “ What a peerless couple ! ” 

But with a quaking heart, Xenie Karovitch watched 
the lovely orphan disappear in the happy throng. 

Her jeweled hands trembled ! 

“ She knows all ! ” was the affrighted woman’s keen 
interpretation of the glance of undying hatred in the 
eyes which had cursed her to eternity with their un- 
spoken malediction. 

“ There will be a terrific arraignment of the General 
— and — Marie would not even spare the Grand Duke. 
She is capable of any mad deed now ! ” 

The alarmed Xenie leaned forward and signaled 
Barbe Anvkoff with her eyes. There was but one 
coup de strategic left ! The special train stood ready 
for a departure when the fete was done ! The route to 
Moscow and Petersburg avoided all the dangerous 
points of possible meeting. 

As Barbe Anvkoff leaned over her friend, Xenie 
whispered * “ I feel strangely ill ! Let us quietly steal 

out ! ” 

“ Sans adieu ? ” muttered the startled woman. 

“Yes! We will go directly to the station! The 
train is ready, the Intendant and my maid have all pre- 
pared for an instant departure.” 

Barbe Anvkoff stole upstairs ; in a few moments the 
first carriage in waiting received the two fugitives. 

Before the health of the Emperor had been drunk 
at the feast, the special train was whirring along with 
a lightning speed toward Birzoula. 


130 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


Xenie Karcvitch was no coward at heart, but she 
dared not meet Marie’s eyes again ! 

“ Once back in St. Petersburg I am safe,” she mur- 
mured. “ I hold this fool Wraxine through Necker’s 
tyranny of money ! And he will be glad to grovel at 
my feet ! The Grand Duke dare not betray me ! And, 
pour en enfinir, there is always Kalomine ! ” 

The wailing music of the ball was still ringing in her 
ears as she fell into a tired sleep. 

To Barbe Anvkoff she had roughly cried, “ To-mor- 
row — to-morrow ! ” and, although the Grand Duke s 
mai.tre d’hotel, watching the train speeding away, won- 
dered at the haste of the flight, yet he faithfully bore to 
his master, on the Grand Duke’s return from the fete, 
the few words which Xenie had scrawled. “ Devil 
take all these light-minded women ! Would-be Hel- 
ens, every one ! ” cried the disgusted Grand Duke. 
“ But, this frozen Venus is mine at last. The woman 
can not escape me now ! ” 

There was no surprise on Marie Wraxine’s lovely 
face when the Grand Duke, in a few words, stated the 
instant necessity of the departure of the Corps Com- 
mander. “ I will go myself to the station, Madame, 
with General Wraxine, and accompany him. We will 
steal away, so as not to interrupt the Easter feast ! I 
have asked Prince Vorontsoff to preside here with you ! 
And so, we will all meet soon again at Rovno ! ” 
Marie silently bowed her graceful head as the Grand 
Duke, marshaled by Prince Paul, left the room. 

The young Aid, seeking out the Grand Duke’s staff, 
returned to report the carriages at the door. 

In the few moments of their isolation, Michel Wrax- 
ine hurriedly gave his silent w'ife his last commands. 

“ I will send this same train back for you. The In- 
tendant will transport all our personal belongings. 
Paul Zastrow will remain, and will have sole charge of 
the train, with the Grand Duke’s private orders ! You 
will find Villa Lubomirski open to receive you ! ” 
Before Marie could answer, Prince Paul announced 
the Grand Duke as waiting in the carriage. 

Behind him stood Wraxine’s servant, with his mas- 
ter's sword, pelisse, and chapeau. 


i 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 131 

“ Au revoir at Rovno ! ” hastily cried Michel Wrax- 
ine, as with a throb of cowardly joy, he hastened down 
the marble corridor. It was a blessed release ! 

And then, with a stately step, Marie Wraxine took 
old Prince Vorontsoff’s arm and sat — a throned queen 
— at the head of the feast. 

In all the merry mirth of the splendid supper, the be- 
trayed wife’s eyes roved around the table. The dis- 
appearance of Baroness Karovitch and her ame dam- 
nee had not been noticed. 

But rumors of the great mutiny at Rovno now filled 
the halls, and none wondered at the sudden departure 
of the Grand Duke and his General-in-Chief. 

It was only when Prince Paul Zastrow, with a wild 
yearning in his eyes, led her aside, after the supper, 
that Marie knew of the departure of the two women 
on a special train. 

Her eyes seemed to flash lightning as she now 
turned her passionate glances upon the young Apollo, 
whose heart almost stopped beating. 

A witching waltz was filling the halls with its se- 
ductive, passion-laden throb ! 

Standing there, their eyes had met in a wordless 
prayer — a voiceless self-surrender ! 

Out among the circling dancers they glided; he felt 
her wild heart beat warmly against his own ; they were 
at last one, in soul and spirit. 

It was in the far shadows of the tapestried corridor 
that the love-maddened Prince murmured : “ Marie 

— life is for us alone — the love of eternity ! ” 

And then, soft as the falling dews of night, she whis- 
pered : “ Paul ! I have a heart to throw away ! Only 

this — you must take me out of Russia ! ” 

“Darling!” he murmured, “Fate has joined our 
s.ouls to eternity ! I have worshiped you since I held 
the crown of gold over your dear head ! ” 

“ Go now ! ” she faltered. “ Come to me at noon ! ” 
He laid his burning lips upon her hand. “ Forever ! ” 
he sighed. 

When the last reveler had gone, Marie Wraxine 
stood alone at her open window ! 

The gleaming white stars hung over her in the misty 


132 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


blue. She tore off the glittering ornaments which 
decked her love-tortured breast. 

“ They would sell me for a price ! I give myself to 
the man who loves me ! ” she cried. And then, across 
the dark vault, trailed a gleaming, falling star ! 


CHAPTER VIII. 

A DIPLOMATIC QUEST. 

For two days after the magnificent Easter ball of the 
Wraxine’s, there was a flood tide of gossip in every 
boudoir and club in gay Odessa. 

The opeia foyer and the giided boxes were crowded 
with eager quid nuncs. 

In some mysterious way, the strange departure of 
the two St. Petersburg Birds of Paradise from the ball, 
and the sudden following of the Grand Duke and 
General had been connected. 

In vain did the Governor-Generars staff officers as- 
sert that the Baroness Xenie’s train had departed, by 
the right, from Jmerinka to Koursk and Moscow, and 
that an Imperial private train, known by its blue cars 
and red silk curtains, had been traced on beyond 
Koursk. 

“Yes, and,” laughed the doubting gossips, “that 
last train was empty! But, by Kazatin and Louninetz, 
the two women who had been exalted into Queens of a 
night, could easily reach .Smolensk, and go on to St. 
Petersburg, traveling all the way to Rovno, with the 
Grand Duke.” 

But one man in Odessa no one dared to ask a ques- 
tion ! It was the busy Prince Paul Zastrow, whose 
handsome face was seen only in glimpses at the great 
Gare, or else dashing along the Boulevard in a closed 
carriage. 

The evening of the second day after the departure 
of the Grand Duke Anatole and General Wraxine. saw 
the departure of the entire servants and household lug- 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


133 


gage of General Wraxine on the goods’ train hastily 
made up under Prince Paul Zastrow’s orders. 

“ The happy family is at last en route,” sneered the 
watchful Chef de Police, as he strode out of his office, 
and, slipping off his uniform, went out for an evening 
en Haroun al Raschid. 

“ Thank God they are all out of Odessa! ” he sighed, 
in happy relief. 

And, morning dawning, found the mansion of the 
Wraxine’s on the Boulevard all closed and deserted, 
save by a shock-headed dvornik. 

It was ten o’clock when the Governor-General of the 
Province entered his audience-room, in the official 
palace on the Boulevard. 

General Tchernikoff was in a most charming humor. 
He had been a social star of the magnificent Easter 
ball of the Wraxine’s, and he had enjoyed a petit 
dejeuner with a long- resistant Delilah, as a result of 
that superb fete. 

And, also, on the night before, he had won a thou- 
sand gold Imperials from his chum, Prince Vorontsoff. 

He had passed a happy morning half hour on the 
balcony of his Headquarters over a prime cigar, the 
firstling of a dozen boxes sent on by the Grand Duke 
from the Imperial cabinet. And, as the Governor- 
General of New Russia, watched below him a beautiful 
white-hulled steam yacht of two hundred tons gliding 
out of the Port, he felt that the vice-royalty of the 
great Kherson was a very pleasant thing. 

Looking forward to a tete-a-tete dinner with his re- 
pentant, long-sought Aspasia, he listlessly turned over 
the telegrams handed to him by Colonel Dobrovitch, 
his Chief Aide. 

“ Ah! The Grand Duke Anatole has safely reached 
Smolensk!” he murmured. “The mutiny could not 
have been so very serious. He orders all the cattle 
vans of the whole Kherson moved up to Elizabeth- 
grad to transport the horses of the Rovno Corps. Send 
this to the Commander of the Eighth Corps ! To re- 
port instantly by despatch to Smolenski ! ” 

Tearing open a second envelope, the Governor mur- 
mured : 


134 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

“ Prince Paul Zastrow to report to the Grand Duke 
personally at Smolensk, forthwith. 

“ That means that Paul will be an Imperial Aid-de- 
Camp soon ! Lucky fellow ! The handsomest man in 
Russia ! He will b&a General at thirty ! Send him this 
instantly.” 

“ And, stay, Dobrovitch ! Here are two telegrams 
for Excellence Madame General Marie Wraxine — on 
her special train ! .Send them’ off instantly ! ” 

And then, after gracefully granting a few petitions, 
the Governor-General leisurely drove down to the 
“ Cercle de Noblesse.” 

After his particularly “ soignee ” breakfast, the great 
man disappeared, and was not officially found until at 
eleven o’clock that evening, when the two sentinels 
clashed their muskets in a hasty “ present arms ” as 
the haughty noble stepped out of a private coupe. 

At the door, Colonel Dobrovitch, with anxious eyes, 
hastened his master into his private cabinet. 

“It is astounding, High Excellence,” he faltered; 
“but, you must pardon my lack of ceremony. The 
Chief of Police awaits you in the office. I have just 
returned from the Commander of the Eighth Corps ! 
The whole city has been searched ! ” 

“ What do you mean?” cried the conscience-stricken 
Governor, still thrilled with the memories of his little 
“diner a deux.” “There is always some devil i 
thing happening in Russia! ” 

Poor Dobrovitch’s hand went up in a formal salute. 

“ The Prince Paul Zastrow is nowhere to be found!” 

The Governor-General dropped his golden cigarette- 
case. He was astounded ! 

“ And, Madame la Generate Wraxine, neither! ” 

The stout Colonel hung his head in shame. 

“ Fool! They must have left on the special train! ” 
roared the Governor, still fighting against his sink., i 
suspicions. 

And then, Dobrovitch turned and silently adm 
the Chief of Police, who shivered under the glare of f - 
Governor’s eyes. 

“ You know nothing? ” he fiercely cried. “ You! ” 

The frightened Chief saluted. “ The special passcn- 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


135 


ger train of two cars and an engine has waited all day, 
High Excellence, at the station, with steam up ! Mad- 
ame’s maid is there, but, she knows nothing ! I could 
get no orders from you ! No one knew where you 
were ! ” 

And then, the sly police agent saw that he had barely 
saved his Colonel’s shoulderstraps. 

“ The house — have you searched it? ” the Governor 
snapped out. 

“ My two best Lieutenants and the house dvor- 
nik have gone all over it. It was simply a maison 
garnie. Excellence Madame Wraxine left this morn- 
ing in a carriage, alone, at seven o’clock! The car- 
riage has returned, leaving her in the Parc Alexandre! 
She has not been seen since. The home is empty of all 
General Wraxine’s belongings! It is a mystery!” 

“ Prince Zastrow ? ” demanded the noble, with a 
strange new light in his eyes, “ Superintended the dis- 
patch of all the household yesterday ; sent the last 
effects and the maid down to the train, now here, this 
morning, and then drove away in a carriage.” 

The Governor-General tore open three or four new 
dispatches and sadly eyed Dobrovitch. 

The flush of anger flamed over his face. “ Has noth- 
ing left the city unsearched to-day ? ” he demanded, 
turning to the trembling Chief of Police. 

“ Only the Norwegian steam yacht ‘ Oscar,’ ” mur- 
mured the Chief. “ No police inspection was had, as 
she had a ‘ permis de l’Ambassade ’ at Constantinople.” 

A light now broke in upon the great official’s trou- 
bled mind. 

“ Dobrovitch,” he said, “ let us go over to the Swed- 
ish Consul-General, you and I, instantly ! ” 

With a wave of his hand, he motioned to the Chief of 
Police to await his return. 

“ If you do not solve this mystery,” he growled, 
“ you will be a junior Lieutenant to-morrow night! ” 

And then, the man who had dreamed away the happy 
evening hours in “ les bonnes fortunes ” sighed : 

“ Poor Wraxine! This is but the revenge of out- 
raged nature — of a young soul betrayed into the im- 
possible of life! ” 


136 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

In an hour, the Governor-General slowly returned. 
His accent was kindly as he bade the Chief of Police 
depart. 

“ Keep this absolutely secret — in mercy — as long as 
you can! I have sent a staff officer up to Rovno! 
That will take sixty hours ! In the meantime privately 
sift this whole matter, and report only to me in per- 
son ! ” 

It was long after midnight when Geheral Tcherni- 
koff dismissed his old comrade, Prince Vorontsoff. 

Colonel Dobrovitch had brought an armful of charts. 

“ If they do not stop at Constantinople, they c^.r 
safely make Malta in seven days,” gloomily stated the 
Chief of Staff. 

“ There is no power to seize the yacht, Vorontsoff? ” 
sadly queried General Tchernikcff. 

“ Not on the high seas,” moodily answered the civi- 
lian noble. “ And Count Lidstrom, the owner, left 
last night for Galatz! If he loaned the yacht to Paul 
Zastrow probably he knows nothing ! If Zastrow 
hired it, we are then equally powerless ! ” 

The two silver-haired nobles had kept up the mas- 
querade of a little midnight supper to blind all the 
junior officials. 

At three o’clock, Vorontsoff wrapped his furs around 
him, and was escorted to the Governor-General’s car- 
riage. 

“ Poor Wraxine! ” he sighed. “ Let him find it out 
for himself ! It is the crowning disgrace of a splendid 
career ! ” 

Governor-General Tchernikoff restlessly walked his 
balcony, watching for the faint flush of dawn, while the 
red light of his cigar burned as fiercely as a beacon of 
the dying night! 

“ The Grand Duke,” he murmured, “ Baroness 
Xenie, la belle Anykoff, this chivalric mad-hearted 
boy — they have all driven that high-spirited soul out 
of her sphere! This marriage to Wraxine was only a 
hollow sacrifice. Ah! My God! To think of Helene 
Souvaroff’s daughter having no shield from the world’s 
scorn now, but the honor of her seducer! Another 
fallen star — another fallen star!” 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 137 

And the mail who habitually sinned in safety, 
cloaked around with a mantle of hypocrisy, gazed 
down along the future years, shuddering at the coming 
tragedy of Marie Kriloff’s life! And he had himself 
sent so many innocent women on that easy grade down 
to a hell in life ! 

But, out on the darkling waters the swift, lean 
“ Oscar ” sped along over the Euxine waves, her 
white sides gleaming like the silver galley of Venus! 
None knew on the fairy pleasure boat of the dark 
imaginings of the lonely Pearl Queen, as she gazed 
back at the fog-veiled shores of Odessa! 

Her bruised and tortured heart was still filled with 
the grim incense of revenge. 

“I have dragged him down,” she exulted; “they 
dare not explain — the story is one that they dare not 
tell!” 

And so, passion swept, she knew not whither, she 
was being dragged along! Paul Zastrow had told her 
of the fair land far over the sea where they would be 
free from all pursuit. 

Out beyond the Pillar of Hercules, far over the 
green Atlantic, lay the land where the lovers would 
find the eternal glow of a summer of the heart! 

“ I know not the land — not even the language — and 
I shall be a stranger there, Paul ! ” sobbed the woman, 
at whose feet he knelt in the first ecstasies of love’s 
delirium ! 

“ You have my honor for your shield and buckler — 
my life, my love — my own Marie,” he murmured, cov- 
ering her hand with burning kisses. 

And, so on, to glide through the eternal sea-gates 
of the old Roman world, to float under the purple 
shores of Mitylene, to drift past Sicily’s enchanted 
shores, the lovers, a flickering hope in their hearts, left 
a clouded life and perished honor behind them! 

The unknown future lay before them veiled in the 
gray mists of the night which closed down upon them. 

It was three days after the fleet “ Oscar ” had dipped 
below the blue rim of the southern horizon, when 
General Wraxine’s Chief of Staff gloomily listened to 
the story of the boatman who had ferried the fugitives 


138 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

out to the “ Oscar,” and the final report of the gloomy 
Chief of Police. 

The mantle of shame was now thrown over the de- 
throned Pearl Queen. 

Sadly the Governor-General translated to the mes- 
senger hem Kovno the cipher dispaicnes 01 the Grand 
Duke, and then said: 

“ Your Chief knows the worst now! You shall learn 
all! Take home this story locked in your breast! I will 
send the Chief of Ponce back with you! Alas! It is 
life ! In a month, all gilded Russia will know of Wrax- 
ine’s broken life — of the fallen star’s flight — and then 
there remains nothing but Michel Wraxine’s shame, 
and the breaking of the heart of the lovely girl ! ” 

The astounded Chief of Staff brushed tears from his 
eyes. 

“ Poor, betrayed rirl; even death is better than this!” 

And the haggard Governor-General grasped his 
hands in a remorseful silence ! 

“ Go back to your master! Perhaps death will be 
merciful! Even his death would be better than this 
living shame! ” 

It was a ghastly denouement, and the hardened men 
of the world trembled in facing it! 

While they buried Marie Kriloff’s disgraced name 
out of sight at St. Petersburg, once more, Xenie 
Karovitch’s light foot pressed the velvety Persian 
tapestries of the Palace. The Grand Duke Anatole, 
crazed with a disappointed passion, now faced the 
scornful beauty, in whose pitiless eyes a latent triumph 
burned. 

“ You still long for her — soiled as she is ! Telegraph 
to his mother at Sorrento! The Princess Prascovie 
will surely know! ” 

“ I want her, Xenie,” slowly growled the man who 
had hounded the White Queen out of her sphere. “ I 
want her — to pay the price- — I want to follow her over 
the earth! And, I want you,” he cried, in a sudden 
passion, “ to be the woman to follow her on for me — 
downward — down into the depths! You shall reign in 
my heart, for you have red blood in your veins! P>ut 
as for this fool, she shall suffer ! ” 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 1 39 

It had been an astounding revelation to Xenie Karo- 
vitch, and the wary Grand Duke had well used the 
element of surprise. For, the Baroness Xenie had not 
dared to share her own secret with that gay, free lance 
of fortune, Madame Barbe Anykoff! 

The artful woman had only arrived at home at the 
Maison Kriloff, and after a night’s rest, was now con- 
sidering the problem of leaving the Place Michel. 

In the terrific social explosion which she now 
awaited, as the result of the warfare between husband 
and wife, she had decided to cleave to the Grand Duke; 
to terrify. General Wraxine through the Necker firm, 
and then, to separate herself slyly from Barbe Anykoff ! 

“ If there is a disaster, she will not share it; should 
there be profit, it is to be mine alone! ” 

The slavish infatuation of Alexandre Kalomine of- 
fered her a hidden home of her own, and she had de- 
termined to take a refuge there. 

She had donned her most ravishing toilette de sortie 
to see her lover, when the Grand Duke’s private car- 
riage rolled into the court below. 

“A la bonne heure! ” she laughed, as she was 
whirled away, through the chilly spring day, to the 
Winter Palace. 

And, by a strange caprice of Fortune, she had 
pleased the Grand Duke! For, when he suddenly read 
to her the first cipher dispatch of the Governor-General 
of Odessa, he saw in her face the shock of a surprise be- 
yond all words. 

“ Paul Zastrow is the man ! ” she cried, springing 
up! “ They never noticed each other’s presence! And 
he was away all the winter! They hid their deviltry 
neatly ! ” 

The Grand Duke Anatole laughed grimly. “ Certain 
stars shot madly from their sphere! Some cataclysm, 
unknown to us, has then thrown them into each other’s 
arms! ” 

Xenie Karovitch listened, with a beating heart, as 
the jealousy-crazed Anatole proceeded. 

“ This is not your work or mine ! She shall drink the 
cup of bitterness ! You are not to go back to Rovno — 
you are not to go to Odessa — you are to break off all 


140 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

relations with General Wraxine! I will follow your 
advice! I shall instantly telegraph all to the Princess 
Prascovie Zastrow! You must see that this is Paul’s 
ruin! He forfeits the titles to his estate — all succession 
— as a Russian deserter! He has no passport — he 
never dare re-enter Russia. There is but one safe 
refuge for him! ” 

“ Yes! ” hastily whispered Xenie. “ He will go to 
America with her! He speaks English superbly. She, 
poor wretch, not a word! ” 

“ You will take your cue from me,” calmly con- 
tinued the enraged Grand Duke. “ I do not choose 
to have your name or mine connected with this! Prin- 
cess Prascovie will soon post on here and throw her- 
self on the clemency of the Czar! I wish to gain her 
full confidence, so as to follow on this loving couple ! 
You must not discuss this with her! Break off with 
General Wraxine! I will have further use for you! 
And if you can hold your peace, then your fortune is 
made ! Had she any money? ” 

“ Not a rouble,” sneered Xenie; “ only a few trum- 
pery diamonds and an old pearl necklace! ” 

“Good!” growled the Duke; “they will soon feel 
the gnawing of the wolf! Paul gambles, and he has 
not a dollar! His mother, too, has but a slender estate! 
This will soon ruin them all! ” 

“ And, now,” smiled Xenie, “ I am yours, quand 
meme! Tell me what I shall do! I can not linger on 
the Place Michel! ” 

“ No — not another moment! ” cried the Grand 
Duke, springing up and pacing the floor. 

He mused a few minutes, and then seating himself 
beside the woman, bewitching in her hour of secret tri- 
umphs, said : 

“ You are to leave the Place Michel without one 
word of confidence with Barbe Anykoff ! Ignore her — 
that’s my order! You and I must be untouched by the 
crash of the scandal. Go to the Hotel de l’Europe! 
Install yourself there to-day, for a month, en princesse. 
I may need you to go to England, or perhaps on to 
America! I fancy that the motherly Princesse Pras- 
q qyj e will soon follow this young brute. She adores 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 141 

him! I will see Alexandre Kalomine, the Director of 
the Imperial Bank. He shall find you a pretty little 
datcha on the islands, and a jewel-box of a little house 
on the Admiralty Quai.” 

Xenie’s eyes filled with happy tears of joy. 

“ Leave the Place Michel to-day,” imperatively said 
the Grand Duke. “ Kalomine will supply all your 
wants. My maitre d’hotel, Jean Beraud, will bring all 
my letters to you! As. for our meetings — you must 
come here to me! The wilderness of the Winter Palace 
is the safest place on the Neva! ” he laughed. 

“ And now, to our little breakfast ! Remember ! 
One whisper of womanly chatter, and over the frontier 
you go, never to return! I must hold you up above 
all this Rovno and Odessa circle to clear my own 
name! For I will not have the world know that a 
callow boy has defeated me, and dragged off this pretty 
fool ! I will thwart them all with the Emperor — he 
never shall pardon them ! ” 

“ I will obey. You can have my life itself — in your 
service,” cried Xenie, in a transport of joy. “ Only tell 
me — poor old Wraxine, the General — what of him? ” 
The tall patrician clenched his fist and struck the 
table a resounding blow. 

“Fool and dotard! He shall be ruined — disgraced. 
His Tartar brutality has frightened this shy girl away! 
I dare not strike him down openly! If he asks to be 
relieved, I will have to flatter and compliment him. 
But, let this drift on a month or so ! Then he shall be 
suddenly deprived of his command for alleged irreg- 
ularities, and sent out to Kamtchatka or Saghalien 
to watch a huddle of convicts there for ten years! The 
climate will kill him in a season or so — but, he must 
not come down with a crash. After this storm has 
blown over, he will be pulled down by another hand 
than mine! It is the safest way! ” 

When the gay little breakfast was concluded, the 
Grand Duke himself led Xenie to the private postern 
of the higher staff. 

“ Not a word from you to a soul! I go now to tele- 
graph Princess Prascovie ! To-morrow, Jean shall wait 
on you ! Use him for anything you wish ! I must see 


I 4 2 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


you bien installee, as I shall soon leave here for two 
weeks ! So, I will ride out the storm ! I will handle 
Wraxine, and come back here to meet Princess Pras- 
covie! And I shall turn her over to you. You are to 
represent all the outraged honor of the Kriloff s and 
Souvaroff’s! Thus, with you and I, ma belle, en hai- 
monie, we can trap this white-faced Phryne and the 
mad young deserter! His fleeing from the army for- 
feits his title ! We will next hear of him — outre mer ! 
America is. the receptacle of all male and female devil- 
try ! ” 

Before sunset, Madame la Baronne Xenie Karovitch 
was laughing over her victories in a princely apart- 
ment of the Hotel de l’Europe. 

The fortunate absence on an Easter party at 
Tsarskoe-Zeloe of Barbe Anykoff, allowed Xenie to 
leave the Place Michel forever without a word of gos- 
sip. 

The golden-haired widow was not there to question. 
To the astonished Elia and his alter-ego, Marie, the 
victorious human vulture sternly said: “You are to 
get your orders only from General Wraxine now — or 
the Excellence herself. I am soon leaving the country 
— that is all ! ” 

“ A splendid denouement it will be/’ laughed Xenie, 
as she drove away. “ For nothing is known as yet, 
and I am protected from all intrusion ! ” 

Three things made Xenie’s heart happy! Well she 
knew why she had been placed in the magnificent hotel 
palace on the rue Michel and the Perspective Nevsky ! 
“ He is an artful tyrant of love — Anatole,” she laughed. 
“ Every move that I make will be known to him there 
— every letter — every visit ! This is one good point : 
it covers my hidden friendship with Alexandre. En 
second, Alexandre must soon know of the Grand 
Duke’s trust in me ! That rivets him to me ! When 
this human ghoul has slaked his revenge, Alexandre 
can quietly marry me — we are now both protected — 
and thus, I rule both the Neckers and the Grand Duke ; 
for Wraxine will be soon effaced ! Ah ! my letter 
reached him at Rovno before even the news of his 
wife’s flight ! That was a tour de force worthy of Catk- 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


143 


erine the Great! I have paid off this old wolf Wrax- 
ine in his own shame ! ” 

And, dining merrily alone, under the sheen of crystal 
and silver, the mellow glow of the wax lights, that 
evening Xenie felt secure at last in her own wicked 
heart. “ Alexandre knows that I am fenced in with 
golden fetters here ! But, when Anatole is beyond 
Moscow, I can steal away to Viborg, and Kalomine 
shall know all that I care to give him, until we marry — 
with the Grand Duke’s special sanction. The pretty 
datcha — the little gem of a house — my magnificent 
tyrant Anatole shall be my slave now, my future 
friend — with Alexandre as a safe buckler! For, the 
Grand Duke is under the golden wheels of the money- 
chariot of the Imperial Bank ! ” It was a pleasing re- 
ward of consistent virtue ! ” 

Far away at Rovno, on this eventful evening, Gen- 
eral Wraxine was sitting alone in the library of the 
Villa Lubomirski. 

The lights of the great camp twinkled around like 
swarms of golden fireflies. 

He was pale and his eyes showed the sullen ferocity 
of the wolf! The rich dinner lay all untasted before 
him, and he had swallowed great drafts of fiery 
brandy in his impatience. 

He had been alarmed by the Grand Duke going 
whirling on up to Wilna and St. Petersburg. 

He was further maddened by the absence of his wife ; 
and a ferocious growl escaped him as he thought of 
Paul Zastrow’s silence. 

He only awaited the return, at daybreak, of his Chief 
of Staff, who had telegraphed from Odessa : “ Com- 

ing alone.” 

Busied with the instant repression of the serious 
frays between the peasantry and the soldiers, awaiting 
the pouring in of fifty trains bearing the first install- 
ments of the fifteen thousand horses; occupied with 
plans of greed and gain ; dreaming of the golden har- 
vest of the new constructions, he had hardly noted the 
receipt of the telegram detaching Prince Paul Zastrow 
as Chief Aid-de-Camp to the Grand Duke, and order- 


144 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

ing him to report forthwith to the Grand Duke, on the 
Neva. 

But — his wife ! The non-arrival of the woman whom 
he had already, in his heart, betrayed to the lowest 
shame, had* startled him ! 

He recalled Xenie’s ominous prediction! “You 
will find her, some day, to be a stubborn, untamable 
soul, a heart of flame — a will of spring steel ! ” 

Michel Wraxine dared not ask the Grand Duke why 
he had made the theatric entree at the Easter ball with 
Baroness Xenie and the unwelcome Barbe Anykoff; 
but, with a sullen, red glow of anger in his heart, he 
only waited for the return of his Chief of Staff. 

The Corps Commander dared not quit his post for 
an instant. He felt that some sudden revolt of his 
wife’s outraged pride had caused her to delay coming 
on, though the servants and the heavy luggage had 
just arrived. 

Too proud to question them, he now burned to see 
his Chief of Staff face to face. 

Colonel Tcherchinsky was a grizzled old family man 
who had followed Wraxine’s upward course for many 
a year, through battle smoke, and desert exile. 

“ Marie — this stubborn, intractable fool — shall feel 
my displeasure he growled, “ for, I will tame her, 
even if her wild heart breaks !” 

He felt the insult that there was neither a line, a tele- 
gram, nor a message to explain the astounding delay! 

“ Surely, if anything had happened they would have 
let me know the facts.” He thought of the Governor- 
General. the Eighth Corps Commander, and the 
princely old Vorontsoff — all stanch comrades and fel- 
low-aristocrats. 

“ Whom can I trust? ” he bitterly groaned. “ The 
world envies me this brilliant command ! Xenie? Can 
it be that this she-devil, Xenie, has told Marie aught? 
How could she? Her train left before ours! We 
passed it on the side switch at Birzoula ! ” 

And then, once more, he read the menacing letter 
which had been handed to him at the Gare du Nord, 
when the two commanders left Odessa together! He 
had only read it by stealth in the train ! 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. I45 

“ Xenie would never dare to expose me !” he growled. 
“ She evidently fears the Grand Duke, and all this is 
but a bit of her tiger-cat frenzy ! It has grated upon 
her to see Marie go up to the rank of my wife ! Curse 
her fancied scruples ! It was ‘ bien connu,’ we would 
all lead a happy life — un menage a trois ! For she can 
not afford to ignore the past ! ” And now, he read 
over the hastily scrawled billet. 

Its threatening words took on a new meaning! 

For, in her nervous scrawl, in the hurried midnight 
hour, she had dashed off a few words to temporarily 
break off all intercourse with the man who had knelt 
before her in his self-abasing passion. 

Xenie Karovitch had been bitter in the words — but 
she had veiled the truth ! 

She feared to meet again that blaze of contemptuous 
scorn in Marie’s eves ! 

And the crafty woman dared not ever disclose to the 
Duke or her rejected lover that Marie had detected the 
secret meeting with Wraxine — that she had been an 
unwitting eavesdropper ! 

At the station, the Chief of the line had hastily in- 
formed her of the order to prepare two cars and an 
engine to hurry the Grand Duke and General Wraxine 
away to the scene of the mutiny and peasantry fray! 

“ This will break off Michel’s foolish passion,” she 
had sternly muttered. “ It is the way of the voluptuary. 
He only desires me now because the Grand Duke fa- 
vors me for a brief amourette ! ” 

And so, she had written these words, which now 
filled Wraxine’s bosom with a grave alarm — the pre- 
science of some coming disaster. 

“No, Michel! My answer to you is No! You 
broke off our past ! I have long been your fond slave ! 
I am a slave no more ! . This is not love, your selfish 
pleadings of to-night ! It is cowardice ! You only 
wish to save yourself, and to leave me helpless in your 
hands ! But you are under my heel now ! The Grand 
Duke is my friend — your wife is my foe ! As for her, 
he has dragged her name in the mire for months ! You 
have been hoodwinked, not by me, but by him ! And 
you dare not quarrel with him — you know why ! You 


146 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

have been playing with fire ! Go, ask who is the laugh 
of all the clubs of Odessa. You thrust me out of the 
Villa Lubormirski — you are powerless now — you can 
not drag me down ! ” 

It was in the early gray of the misty morning when 
Colonel Tcherchinsky leaped from the carriage and 
dashed, alone, into the silent corridors of Villa Lubo- 
mirski. 

A drowsy valet pointed silently to the door of the 
library. “ Go in, Barm,” he faltered, at last, shrinking 
back. “ He has waited all night for you — in there! ” 

The stout Colonel was haggard with the wild dash of 
riding fifteen hundred miles as fast as the snorting iron 
horse could whirl along the two light carriages. 

“ Get there before this news reaches him ! ” said the 
heart-sick old noble, Vorontsoff. “ Or else, you may 
find him dead by his own hand ! ” 

And now, as the Chief of Staff laid his heavy hand 
on General Wraxine’s shoulder, the sleeper rose up 
with a hoarse cry : “ Where is she ? ” 

The Colonel bowed his head silently as he extended 
a letter. 

“ Only Prince Vorontsoff dared write this to you ; I 
can not tell you anything! ” 

The General of the Rovno Corps, with one glance at 
the old soldier’s face, tore open the sealed letter. 

Tcherchinsky watched him as he threw himself in a 
chair and slowly read the fatal lines. 

A frightful spasm of rage contorted the General’s 
face ! 

The purple flush of shame crimsoned his stern coun- 
tenance ! 

How often had he laughed in his sleeve before at 
such a social coup de theater! The “injured hus- 
band ” — the laughing stock and scorn of men ! 

Wraxine sprang to his feet, his voice sounding like 
the rattle in a dying man’s throat : “ They lie ! They 

lie ! It is the Grand Duke ! He has taken her away to 
Yalta ! The boy would never dare ! Oh, my God ! ” 

With a whirling fall, the great Corps Commander 
crashed down upon the floor, senseless, in a sudden fit 
of apoplexy. 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


147 


And then, Serge Tcherchinskv quickly seized the let- 
ter, which had fallen on the floor ! He raised his voice 
in a wild appeal for help. 

“ Here,” he cried, “ a half-dozen of you get him to 
bed ! Take my carriage, Fedor,” he sharply said, seiz- 
ing the valet. “ Go like the wind to Surgeon-General 
Milanovitch! Tell him that General Wraxine is dy- 
ing of a fit of apoplexy ! Bring the Surgeon back here 
on the gallop! Wrap him up in robes! He is not to 
wait to dress ! ” 

A score of frightened domestics were already busy 
with their master as the Colonel, stepping to the ve- 
randa, sent the sentinel on the run for the Captain of 
the Guard ! “ Saddle’a couple of horses instantly ! ” he 
yelled. It was a house under the shadow of the dark 
angel’s wing. But — the fatal letter was already safely 
hidden ! 

In five minutes, the young officer was madly racing 
away to notify Division-General Pauloff that he was 
in command of the vast cantonments in place of the 
stricken Chief. 

“ I will await your orders here,” was the faithful 
subordinate’s message. 

“ This is the end of his career ! ” sadly mourned the 
old Chief of Staff. 

“ It is Nature’s revenge ! ” The stout soldier shud- 
dered, for he had followed Michel Wraxine’s daily life 
for years ! 

Trampling over the defenseless hearts of women — 
invading households — hounding down the unprotect- 
ed ! Now the grim harvest of shame was reaped by his 
own hand ! 

An hour later, the Surgeon-General came out of the 
sickroom, and curiously eyed General Pauloff and the 
Colonel. “ Who knows aught of the cause of this ? ” 
the gray-headed man of science demanded. 

“ He has dropped like a steer under the pole ax ! ” 

And the Colonel, mindful of the glance of his su- 
perior’s eyes, kept silent. 

“ Then, General Pauloff.” quietly said the Surgeon, 
“ you must telegraph the Grand Duke Inspector-Gen- 
eral and have a new Corps Commander appointed, for 


148 THE SHIELD OF IIIS HONOR. 

Baicn Michel Wraxine has drawn his sword for the 
last time ! ” 

Before sunset, the Grand Duke, a thousand versts 
away, on his way to Nijni-Novgorod, read the news, 
with a ferocious grin of delight. “ Voila les choses 
tres-bien arranges ! ” Without a sigh, he coolly 
telegraphed to the Commander of the Eighth Corps at 
Odessa, to proceed to Rovno and assume the com- 
mand ! 

And then, he indited an order to General Pauloff to 
hold the Rovno command until the arrival of the new 
General. 

“ I am on my way now back to Rovno,” finished the 
happy Grand Duke. 

And then, sending his maitre d’hotel back to St. Pe- 
tersburg with a sealed letter to the Baroness Xenie, 
the Grand Duke had his train switched and turned, and 
then sped along toward the Volhynian camp, where 
the unfortunate Michel Wraxine lay, a broken man, 
hovering between insanity and death. 

His Highness the Grand Duke Anatole was in an 
excellent good humor when he reached Moscow at 
midnight. For there, he found telegrams from both 
Prince Vorontsoff and Governor-General Tchernikoff 
that they would meet His Highness at Rovno, with the 
Corps Commander, to confer as to the necessary 
changes of command. 

“ Delicious,” laughed the Grand Duke, as he opened 
and read a cipher telegram from Baroness Xenie 
Karovitch. 

“ Fate has relieved me from the need of relieving 
this bull-headed Michel Wraxine! And his illness — 
the breaking down of his mind — will shut off all danger 
of his ever betraying the secret affairs of the Neck- 
ers ! I will now get the whole delicious story from 
these three Odessa visitors ; and now, Xenie, pretty 
tiger puss, telegraphs me that Princess Prascovie Zas- 
trow has reached Berlin on her way to St. Petersburg. 
Of course, Xenie will learn the details from the poor 
old Prascovie — and — these young Pilgrims of Love 
will soon need money ! ” he gavly laughed. “ Through 
her bankers, Kalomine can easily find out the location 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. I49 

of the elopers! Then, for a quiet diplomatic quest! 
Xenie, this bright-eyed devil, shall chase them from 
place to place, until this satiated young Don Juan 
leaves Marie to her fate ! Apres,” he growled, “ to 
follow her — down to the gutter! And, as for him — I 
can not kill him, but, I can have him hounded as a 
scoundrel ! The Emperor shall hear my story ! ” 

Three days later, the whole wretched story of Wrax- 
ine’s shame and Marie’s wrecked life was a fevered 
blast through the whole camp of Rovno, and in a week 
every club in St. Petersburg was ringing with all the 
details of the miserable flight of this disgraced Pearl 
Queen. 

And vet, though the Grand Duke put the stout Col- 
onel on the rack of questioning, no man ever knew of 
the letter which the Chief of Staff had picked up from 
the floor. 

Prince Vorontsoff, with a saddened face, simply re- 
ferred the Grand Duke to the Governor-General for the 
history of the flitting of the yacht “ Oscar,” and the 
startled Governor-General, with true Russian acute- 
ness, had brought along the Chief of Police. “ It is 
the business of this man to know all which happens in 
Odessa,” he sadly said. 

A fierce thirst now burned in the Grand Duke’s heart 
for the whole story of Marie’s downfall — still a sealed 
book ! 

Michel Wraxine lay in a semi-stupor. There was 
no one who could tell of the hidden history of thf 
three days after the trains had whirled Xenie Karovitch 
away — and the Grand Duke had hastened off with 
Wraxine. 

“ Wait — wait ! ” glowered the Grand Duke. “ Kalo- 
mine and Xenie shall trap the Princess Prascovie ! For 
she must know their hiding-place.” 

It was with a delicious sense of safety that the Grand 
Duke now sent off his cipher telegrams to the Necker 
millionaires. 

“ It was a narrow escape,” he mused, after gazing 
silently on the helpless mass of flesh which remained 
of the proud Wraxine — a mere human hulk, with but 
feeble gleams of mental consciousness. 


150 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

“ They shall urge the new permanent Corps Com- 
mander on the Minister of War ; let them take all the 
risks. They can safely pay my ‘ backsheesh ’ into Kalo- 
mine’s hands. I can trust him — and — he can watch 
the slv Xenie for me ! She is the last — the only 
one who can talk ! I shall seal her mouth with gold, 
and rivet up her honor with a ‘ marriage de complai- 
sance’ ! ” 

It was with an artful deviltry that the Grand Duke 
Anatole had sent his Leporello to Kalomine, with se- 
cret orders to cling closely to the Baroness Xenie. 

And, therefore, it was the happy banker who hung 
over Baroness Xenie’s gilded chair, in her loge, on the 
last opera night of the season. 

Royally robed, insolently happy, Xenie had caught 
the keynote of the whole future intrigue. 

In all the wild whirl of jeering gossip, neither the 
Grand Duke nor Madame Karovitch had been named 
in the clouded misery of Marie’s downfall. 

And so, as the Director-General kissed her hand in 
adieu at the Hotel de l’Europe, she whispered : “ You 
have only to play your part, as I will mine, and — the 
Grand Duke is ours! ,But, he must think that we are 
only his pawns ! ” 

They had interchanged the uttermost confidences, 
and Xenie laughingly nodded her assent to going out 
on the diplomatic quest, to trace out the fugitives. 
The Grand Duke was fooled to the top of his bent by 
the precious pair ! 

The lovely woman, draped in her laces, her exqui- 
site bouquet in her hand, started back in affright as she 
entered her splendid salon at midnight, after waving a 
last kiss to Kalomine. 

There was a little rendezvous for the morrow, to an- 
ticipate the arrival of the doubly hoodwinked Grand 
Duke. 

A tall woman draped in black, rose as the hot-heart- 
ed Venus fluttered in to the flower-decked salon. 

“ Stay — Xenie,” cried the midnight visitor, throw- 
ing back her veil. “ Fear me not ! ” 

And then, with a frightened gasp, Xenie Karovitch 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 151 

murmured : “You here — Princesse Prascovie ! What 
would you have of me ? ” 

There were deep lines in the Princess Zastrow’s 
noble face ; her voice trembled in its anguish as she 
said : “ I have hastened two thousand miles to hear 

from you the story of this horror ! ” 

Xenie laughed bitterly. “ I ? What should I have 
to say ? What have I to do wdth your son — a fugitive 
deserter! A man who has shamed his social order, 
outraged the Grand Duke, and betrayed the chief 
whose bread he broke daily ! And — that woman ! 
What should I know of her ? ” 

The Princess surveyed the magnificence of the 
rooms — the brilliant splendor of the Baroness Xenie — 
the evident “ retour de l’opera.” 

“ Tell me what you will,” she sobbed, “ I shall throw 
myself before the Emperor ; I will beg him to pardon — 
to aid a widowed mother ! ” 

With artful self-protection, Xenie Karovitch hastily 
sketched the finale of the Odessa season — the grand 
Easter ball — the sudden departure of the General — her 
own absence. 

“ There is no one who can tell you any more,” said 
Xenie. 

“ 1 have not seen General Wraxine — neither His 
Highness. Barbe Anykoff came away with me ! ” 

The Princess Zastrow listened as in a horrible dream, 
her hopeless sorrow shining out in her splendid eyes. 
“ It is a horror — a heartbreak — a needless sacrifice of 
two lives ! But, I will follow them over the world till I 
find them ! ” 

With a sudden realization of the mother’s self-devo- 
tion, Xenie Karovitch threw her arms around the neck 
of the sobbing Princess and betrayed her with the 
Judas kiss of hypocrisy. 

“ Let me aid you, dearest, noble heart,” she cried. 
“ Tell me all ! It has been only a mad outward pride 
which has kept me up! To see Helene Souvaroff’s 
daughter go downward into the mire ! ” 

The heartless social spy played her role well, for be- 
fore the Baroness insisted upon her guest’s stealing 


I52 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

some sleep and rest she had learned of the telegraphed 
demand of thirty thousand roubles from Malta ! 

“ Of course, they will never dare to rest on the Con- 
tinent ! It is either England or — -America ! God help 
poor Marie ! ” murmured the Princess Prascovie. 

“ Some heartless treachery has driven her to this 
madness, and she has no shield now but my son’s 
honor! I will never abandon her — but the hand of 
God is heavy on us all ! And — Paul — a disgraced fu- 
gitive ! ” 

“ Tell me all.” softly purred the Grand Duke’s 
heartless spy, “ and, I will share my heart with you ! ’’ 

Two days later the Grand Duke laughed over 
Xenie’s success ! “ The old bird will find the young 

birds for us ! You shall follow her, you pretty witch ! ” 


CHAPTER IX. 

ON AN ALIEN SHORE. 

It was merry by the lake of Pargolovo, on the July 
evening when the Baroness Xenie Karovitch awaited 
(with a secret anxiety) the return of the Princesse 
Prascovie Zastrow from a long voyage of discovery to 
Odessa and Athens. 

Fortune had showered its favors thickly upon the 
Baroness Xenie in the three months since the disap- 
pearance of the headlong Prince Paul Zastrow. 

No prettier datcha lay along the fragrant, embow- 
ered shores of the lake of Pargolovo than “ Le Ros- 
signol.” 

The dozen miles to Petersburg was swiftly traversed 
by Baroness Xenie’s hying Orloffs, and her dainty 
steam launch on the take was the envy of the hundred 
aristocrat cottagers. 

There was on the whole railway line to Finland no 
more ravishing entourage of wooded lakes, and every- 
where dreamy gardens met the eye. 

The Grand Duke Anatole — the man who had re- 
morselessly broken his word of honor to a dead sol- 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 153 

dier’s sister — had more than fulfilled his promise to the 
velvet-eyed siren. 

And now, in this royal summer season, the victorious 
Baroness contentedly sat under her own vine and fig- 
tree, listening to the mellow songs of the gay-hearted 
students drifting by on the birch-shadowed lake ; to the 
wild chorus of the careless soldiers sweeping out to 
their summer camps ; to the happy laughter of children 
roaming in the bewitching tangles of the woods, where 
perfumed airs of Araby the blest floated abroad as an 
incense under the vivid summer sun ! 

There was joy in the heart of both man and maid ! 
The islands were filled with the happy Muscovites 
released from Winter’s icy clutches, and the season of 
Life and Love was on once more. Four months of a 
wild, happy release from the Ice King’s frozen 
clutches ! 

Xenie, waiting for the return of Princesse Prascovie, 
was haunted by no fear of the past. For, her position 
was now fixed far above the tongue of gossip. 

The Grand Duke had commissioned Kalomine to 
purchase the little jewel of a house on the Admiralty 
Quai, and that great noble of the blood Imperial had 
shown every care not to compromise his friend, Mad- 
ame Karovitch. 

Even Barbe Anykoff was puzzled ! Her quondam 
friend was never seen in the Grand Duke’s dangerous 
company ; but the Winter Palace was always open 
to Baroness Xenie, and it was a dignified place of 
meeting. 

And, moreover, the tongue of gossip was now busied 
with other choice morsels of aristocratic scandal ! The 
“ affaire Zastrow ” had dropped into the soon-reached 
Lethe of the public forgetfulness. 

Only at the military clubs, the publication of the or- 
der dropping Prince Paul Zastrow from the Imperial 
service, “for absence without leave,” provoked a slight 
ripple of comment. 

“Poor devil! He went a killing pace!” said 
Pashkof, his best friend and comrade at the Cadet 
School. “ It was always neck or nothing with our 
mad Paul ! ” 


154 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


And now, in the far-away Caucasus, the Grand 
Duke Anatole was making a joyous promenade mili- 
taire, his military train and court of summer guests 
reveling in the enchanting pleasures of the romantic 
land of Schamyl. 

His busy mind was free from every care; for the 
Rovno Corps was now in splendid hands, especially as 
the bankers Necker had swung the Minister of War 
“ into line,” and the vast constructions were all pro- 
ceeding rapidly under the charge of their secret part- 
ner and tool, the new Corps Commander ! 

“ It was a stroke of genius,” mused the Duke, “ to 
bury all the dangerous past under General Wraxine’s 
sudden downfall ! And my tiger puss, pretty Baroness 
Xenie, safe in the hands of Kalomine, will seal the 
past in her breast ! She is powerless to injure any one 
— for Wraxine is a mental imbecile. There is none to 
confirm her story! And — if she talks ” The vo- 

luptuary’s face grew dark. 

■ The saturnine noble only awaited his return to the. 
capital to prosecute his revenge against the vanished 
Pearl Queen. 

As for Paul Zastrow, a blacker stain than even se- 
duction now rested on his dishonored name. 

For the considerable military funds of the Secret 
Service, in the hands of the half-demented Wraxine, 
had all disappeared ! 

The honest old Chief of Staff bluntly said : “ Paul 

Zastrow was the First Aid, and General Wraxine’s 
only confidential Staff officer ! It is easy to see that 
the man who stole Wraxine’s wife away, under his very 
eyes, also had the wit to plunder the military Secret 
Service funds, to which only the Corps Commander 
and his First Aid had an unrestricted access.” 

In the face of this black scandal, Colonel Tcher- 
chinsky was advanced to the rank of General and sent 
away to Turkestan. 

The missing funds were dropped, as “ stolen by par- 
ties unknown,” in default of a proof positive. 

“ Delightful little witch ! ” sighed the Grand Duke, 
as he read Xenie’s letters, teeming with the betrayal of 
Princess Prascovie Zastrow’s heart confidences. “ I 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 1 55 

shall have my revenge yet — through her sprightly 
wit ! ” 

And now, on this July evening, Xenie Karovitch, 
with a seeming tender hospitality, received the return- 
ing mother, who had made the long round of War- 
saw, Rovno, Odessa, Constantinople, Athens, and even 
Malta. It had been a sad and bootless journey ! 

Driving from the station in the carriage, Xenie 
noted the rapid ravages of care and sorrow upon the 
face of the majestic woman. It only needed the bowed 
head, the hopeless whisper, “Nothing!” to tell the 
alert Xenie that the voyager’s toils had all been in vain. 

When the two women were at last left alone in the 
silence of the evening, and the servant spies all care- 
fully shut out, Xenie Karovitch followed, step by step, 
the Princess’s wanderings. It had been but a waste 
of time and money ! 

“ Count Lazienski refuses, even now, to believe in 
Marie’s downfall,” murmured the poor Princess. 
“ ‘ Some sudden aberration of mind,’ he said, ‘ for 
Marie Kriloff’s marriage was an equally quick mar- 
tyrdom. And, he would not allow me to speak to his 
daughter, nor Arline Potocki. ‘ This sorrow and 
shame is sacred,’ he said.” The fugitive wife had at 
least one loyal friend, even if he were only a defeated 
Polish agitator — a despoiled and helpless grandee. 

“ And then, I journeyed on to Rovno ! There, in the 
Villa Lubomirski, poor General Wraxine wanders 
around, only a shattered mental wreck ! In his down- 
fall only his peasant-bred servants are faithful. But, 
by the Grand Duke’s order, a Conservator of his prop- 
erty has been named. The General spends hours in 
writing out his resignation, drafting applications to be 
relieved, and then passes his weary days in waiting for 
the answers which never come ! ” 

Xenie shuddered as she asked : “ Do you know as 

to his private papers ? ” 

“ Ah ! ” sighed the Princess. “ Plonest old Tcher- 
chinsky, by the Grand Duke’s orders, gathered up 
every document, both in the Villa and the Headquar- 
ters at the Cercle de Noblesse. The whole rooms had 
been sealed by the sturdy old Chief of Staff until the 


156 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

Grand Duke, in Tcherchinsky’s presence, destroyed 
every single paper which was not the property of the 
Czar! And, you see, the old Colonel his gained the 
reward of his silence — his new grade of General ! ” 

Xenie breathed freer. For, well she knew the dog- 
like devotion of the rugged Colonel to the man who 
had promoted him from a Sergeantcv of Cossacks. 

“ My letters are then safe/’ she sighed, “ either with 
this old soldier of heroic mold, or else the Grand 
Duke!” 

“ And so,” continued Prascovie Zastrow, “ I was 
forced to leave Rovno without even the crowning 
mercy I had prayed for. For I will find Paul — I will 
reach this poor, deluded Marie Kriloff — if I have to 
search the wide world over! Had Wraxine only been 
in his right mind,” the Princess cried, with flashing 
eyes, “ he should have given Marie a divorce ! I 
would have then been able to see her righted ! For 
Paul should be made to marry her ! He owes her the 
protection of his name, and the devotion of his whole 
life ! And I know that she was driven into a wild de- 
spair — that she sought even in the shadow of shame — 
in an obscure life on alien shores — the relief from some 
hounding persecution.” It was an alarming enthu- 
siasm of charity — of forgiveness ! The prey seemed 
escaping Xenie ! 

“ And this divorce? ” breathlessly whispered Xenie. 

“ Can not be given legally,” sadly answered the 
Princess. “ For, Michel Wraxine will never recover 
his mind ; and here in Russia, no insane or imbecile 
man can be divorced ! The Emperor is the only help — 
the last resource! But even if Michel Wraxine were 
sane, I should beg him to free Marie, and then only, 
I could save her from the fate which lowers over her — 
the ruin of the declassee ! ” 

“Have you seen the Czar?” slowly questioned 
Xenie, her mind working with lightning rapidity. 

“ Not yet! ” sighed Princess Prascovie, “ for I only 
came here to arrange my money affairs for a long ab- 
sence ! I shall beg for an audience next week ! The 
Czar alone has the power to set aside the unfortunate 
marriage ! ” 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 157 

Xenie’s thoughts were far away, in Tiflis, with the 
wandering Grand Duke ! 

“ I must have Kalomine telegraph to him ! ” mused 
the frightened intrigante. “ Once free, and legally 
married to Prince Zastrow, Marie might tell her story, 
and even Paul Zastrow could unveil his knowledge of 
General Wraxine’s dishonesty ! Then, the Grand Duke 
would be disgraced — my future — my golden future — - 
ruined ! ” 

“ I will aid you in your plea to the Czar, as the last 
of the Kriloffs and Souvaroffs : we will kneel together 
before him ! ” impulsively cried the false-hearted 
Xenie. 

“ But ” — she paused and timidly asked — “ did you 
hear any other charges against Prince Paul ? ” 

“ No ! ” proudly answered the Princess Prascovie. 
“ Only his ‘ high-life ’ folly — racing, gambling, and a 
young officer’s extravagance ! His honor is unstained 
save by Marie’s abduction ! I have carefully fed money 
out to Paul ever since he was a Page at Court, and yet 
he has even now more than used up his inheritance! 
I have forced no accounting on him, for I had hoped 
that he would marry Arline Potocki, and so become 
rich beyond even his power to cripple an estate ! But 
it was not to be ! ” she sobbed. “ Count Lazienski told 
me that Paul was spellbound by Marie’s exquisite 
beauty from the very first! It was a fatal day that he 
came to Rovno ! Poor lad ! The victim of a heartless 
Grand Duchess’s fancy, he was harshly chased away 
from the Court to save her name. It is horrible — hor- 
rible — for Marie is doomed now to the ‘ half world,’ 
unless the Czar will extend his clemency ! And, I dare 
not even refer to the foolish infatuation of the Grand 
Duchess for my son ! ” 

“ And at Odessa — what did you learn ? ” queried 
Xenie, waiting to fill up her secret budget for the 
Grand Duke. 

“ No one is honest,” mourned the large-hearted 
Princess. 

“ At Rovno, the whole military circle are absolutely 
forbidden to, in any way, discuss General Wraxine’s 
sorrows ! 


158 .THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

“ And at Odessa, all my friends simply extended 
every kindness, but ignored the whole affair ! And so I 
have traversed all Asia Minor, and the Mediterranean, 
only to find that no human being can positively certify 
to the elopement of these sadly met lovers ! The poor 
boatman who took them on board the ‘ Oscar ’ was 
drowned in a storm before his evidence was legally 
taken. Count Lidstrom is traveling in the Pamirs, 
to be gone two years. This Swedish noble afterward 
sold the ‘ Oscar ’ at Athens, through agents, to a 
wealthy Greek merchant ! The yacht returned from 
Malta to Athens, the Swedish crew was paid off there, 
and all sent home ! There is not a trace — not a single 
trace — of these two desperate young hearts.” 

“ There is but one chance left,” musingly said Xenie. 
“ Have you been at the Place Michel ? There is old 
Elia, in charge of all the personal property of the Kri- 
loffs ! ” 

“ Ah, yes ! ” said the Princess, “ and poor old Elia, 
in terror, shut the door in my face ! I spent an hour 
with Barbe Anykoff ; and — she says that you have been 
so shocked by this shame that she has even feared to 
approach you ! There has been no news of Marie at 
the Maison Kriloff ! ” 

“ Then,” sadly said Xenie, “ all is over ! I have 
a sad duty before me. In a year, if no one claims the 
property in Maison Kriloff, I must legally take charge 
of it and protect it, for,” she ominously added, “ as 
criminal fugitives, neither Paul nor Marie can have a 
passport— and Marie’s authority to dispose of the prop- 
erty would not be recognized ! They are ‘ illegal man 
and woman ’ now — their civil state is forfeit ! ” The 
Princess started, aghast at this new blow ! 

“ My God ! It is true ! ” moaned Princess Pras- 
covie. “ Marie can not either hold or inherit Russian 
property, and Paul, as a deserter, has forfeited all ! I 
must now search the world over — for the law will force 
Marie’s inheritance on you — in time — but, should I 
die, Paul’s estate fth^t is, what I have to leave) would 
be forfeit to the Crown ! ” 

When the secretly delighted Baroness Xenie bade 
her guest “ Good night,” the whole programme was ar- 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 1 59 

ranged for the last appeal to the Czar. “ Tell me all — 
all,” urged Xenie, “ for, you will get no help save 
through me! Am I not the only one left to suffer 
with you? You must have no secrets from me now ! ” 
Xenie had reached the door of her guest’s room, 
when the Princess, with a last effort of self-abnegation, 
called her back ! “ I must tell you the last — the crown- 
ing — sorrow ! When I have rested a little, I must 

humble myself at the feet of my banker, for,” she fal- 
tered, “ I have received triplicate drafts of my son’s 
payable in London, drawn on me for acceptance — and 
on thirty days’ sight ! There is no place named save 
the engraved mark — London — but the drafts are in his 
handwriting. There was also a sealed note, without 
place or date, in which he says : ‘ Marie has now no 

shield but my honor ! These drafts must be paid, even 
if you sell my estate interests ! ’ And, they have been 
all used up in his career of folly ! ” 

A gleam of triumph shot across Xenie Karovitch’s 
face. 

“ And, you will pay them ? ” she breathlessly asked. 
“ If I can encumber my property any more,” sighed 
the Princess. “ I have ventured six hundred thousand 
roubles in a huge sugar mill, hoping to double our 
principal ; the affair is as yet an experiment, but the 
rest of my estate — the unproductive lands — are all cov- 
ered up with heavy mortgages. There is only one last 
resource — my jewels ! They must go ! ” 

“ Say not so ! ” enthusiastically cried the deceitful 
Xenie. “ Rest here ! Be the mistress here ! We will 
go to the city together, in three days ; and, if your 
banker is obstinate, let me try my influence with the 
Imperial Bank. Director Kalomine has always aided 

me ! And your banker — this money king ” 

“ It is I. P. Hendrickson & Co., the English 
agents ! ” frankly said the Princess. 

“ Then,” cried Baroness Xenie, “ sleep well, dear 
heart, and dream of victorv! For, am I not at your 
side!” 

Again the Judas kiss parted the two, while Xenie 
sped away to inscribe her budget of news ! 

“ The Grand Duke will get this whole story at Mos- 


l6o THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

cow,” smiled Xenie as she closed her bulky envelope 
and sealed it with the personal signet given to her by 
her Imperial protector ! 

“ Kalomine has my telegram now ! He will be at the 
station at eight o’clock ! It is for him to handle Pras- 
covie’s banker — he telegraphs to Tiflis for me — in a 
week the Grand Duke will be here, and both the audi- 
ence and the money getting will be secretly controlled 
by us ! She must tell me all, and, when she leaves on 
her quest, she will be easily followed — and — I can run 
them all to bay ! Victoria ! ” 

The tiger-hearted adventuress laughed as she 
thought of the law drifting the last of the Kriloff in- 
heritance automatically into her hands by the enforced 
absence of the fugitive wife ! 

“ They are both well paid off ! ” laughed Xenie. 
“ Marie ignored me — Wraxine thrust me out — both 
are ruined ; the one is a world wanderer, the other a 
disgraced imbecile ! And now, the Grand Duke’s se- 
cret revenge shall follow them on ! ” 

In the sweet, sunny morning, Xenie Karovitch re- 
turned from her drive to the station, as fresh as the 
Queen of Roses. 

The dignified Imperial Bank Director had kept his 
secret tryst, and soon was on his way back to the great 
Babel on the Neva. 

“ The drafts will drift into my hands, Xenie,” he 
laughed. “ I will see Hendrickson’s agent. He will, 
of course, refuse to advance any moneys to her, but will 
protect the, drafts, only, if I will advance the money 
to her at your special prayer. Bring her to me, after 
the Hendricksons refuse, and we will tie her hands ! I 
can soon find out his whereabouts ! When she goes on 
her Quixotic chase of these fugitives, we will send a 
watcher after her ! Once locating the pair, then — we 
have the game in the toils ! But, you must handle the 
Grand Duke ! I will telegraph vou his reply ! ” 

Ten days later, Xenie Karovitch awaited, in the 
Grand Duke’s rooms at the Winter Palace, the return 
of the sorrowing Princess Prascovie Zastrow from the 
private audience chamber of the mighty Czar. 

The loyal mother had gone, dressed in gloomy black 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. l6l 

robes, to beg the one boon which could open an hon- 
orable future to the unfortunate fugitive beauty. 

Princess Prascovie’s heart beat hopefully, for Di- 
rector Kalomine, with a suave courtesy, had, at last, 
personally taken up the drafts refused by the Hen- 
dricksons and “ Accepted them, for honor,” with pri- 
vate conditions made between himself and the London 
agents. 

Ready now, with means to depart — for she had sold 
half. her jewels to the “ benevolent ” Kalomine — Pras- 
covie Zastrow begged of her God but one mercy — the 
Imperial clemency of the annulment of the Wraxine 
marriage. 

And so, before the Czar, she pleaded pitifully, while 
Xenie Karovitch laughed gayly with her princely lover 
in Anatole’s own rooms. 

“ I will be sent for,” he significantly said. “ You 
must go into the grand audience-room, and then re- 
ceive her. But, when she is gone away, followed by 
the man Kalomine has selected, you are free to be 
mine, for a week ! I can come out, under the friendly 
shadows of the night, to Pargolovo, and give you all 
the directions which I do not give to Kalomine ! For 
I have now three months of incessant activity — to visit 
and inspect all our middle and southern camps ! Kal- 
omine has my cipher — he has my carte blanche ! You 
are to go at once to where the runaways are. You 
shall have your maid, my maitre d’hotel as your cou- 
rier, and a private letter of credence from me to our 
Ministers, agents, and consuls! You will be a secret 
attache of the Foreign Office ! ” 

“ And my work ? ” smilingly demanded Xenie. 

“ Only,” said the unpitving voluptuary, “ to blast her 
character; to penetrate her nom de voyage, and pro- 
claim loudly everywhere her shame ! On your cable- 
gram to Kalomine — he has my orders — the nearest 
Russian official will formally notify her to return to 
Russia, or else forfeit her citizenship, her rank, rights, 
succession, and all civil state. As for Paul Zastrow — 
he is already a declared outlaw. If he touches Russian 
soil there is waiting for him — Siberia and — a felon's 
grave ! ” 


162 the shield of his honor. 

The Grand Duke hastened away at a summons from 
the Imperial Cabinet, after clasping Xenie Karovitch 
in his sinewy arms. 

“ I have my spies watching her. The moment 'that 
she leaves, I will come to you. Kalomine will tele- 
graph ! Remember, you are to write to her to keep her 
heart open to you, and when you meet her abroad — if 
you do — you are to be friends with her, and yet, spread 
Marie Kril off’s disgrace skillfully ! For, I do not care 
to have Prascovie Zastrow see my hand in this ! It is 
the Emperor himself who will deal the final blow! ” 

It was ten minutes after the Baroness Xenie had 
glided into the audience-room when the Princess 
Prascovie Zastrow tottered out of the Private Cabinet. 

She sank into her betrayer’s arms in an agony of 
hopeless tears ! 

“ Lost, lost, my God ! ” she sobbed. 

And, leaning forward, breathlesslv asked Xenie : 
“The Czar?” 

“ His Majesty listened kindly to my plea — he heard 
my whole prayer as to the divorce — and — then rang a 
bell ! In a few minutes the Grand Duke Anatole en- 
tered. Taking a package of papers from his nephew, 
the Czar said, coldly : ‘ I would separate this woman 

from the unfortunate General Wraxine — for her sake 
alone, and to ease your noble, motherly heart — but 
here is the record of your son — the proofs of the theft 
of the missing funds of the military chest! Your un- 
fortunate son added theft to the dishonor of betraying 
his General’s wife. And, it is our Imperial will that 
both the fugitives shall remain excluded from Russia ! ” 

Prascovie Zastrow’s breast was shaken with a storm 
of sobs ! 

“ I knelt before him, crying : * My son — a thief ! 

Never!’ And then, the Czar himself raised me and 
aided me to depart ! His last words were : * Come to 

me for yourself — T respect vour motherly sorrow ! But 
for them — the wages of sin is death ! They are Rus- 
sians no longer ! ’ ” 

When Xenie Karovitch had conveyed the sorrow- 
stricken woman back to the villa by the lake, she mar- 
veled over the somber energy of her guest. “ My pass- 


the shib:ld of his honor. 163 

ports will be made out for a year’s absence and vised 
to-morrow. I take to-morrow night’s train for Ber- 
lin and London ! ” 

“What! You leave Russia?” cried Xenie, in a 
seeming agitation. 

“ Forever, unless Paul rights the wrong he has 
done — and — unless he can disprove the foul lie of his 
being the robber of the militarv funds ! ” 

It was the dignified Alexandre Kalomine who es- 
corted the statelv Princess to the train on the next 
evening, and rode with the sorrowing woman beyond 
Gatschina to cheer her on her way. 

With brotherly kindness, he presented one of the 
undfer bank officials — a messenger going to Berlin 
upon a secret financial affairs ! “ He will have every 

care of you ! ” said the false friend. And so, followed 
by traitor and spy, the brave-hearted, gray-haired 
mother set out upon her journey to find the disgraced 
young paladin, whose life ruin had been wrought by 
the roving eves of a bold-hearted Grand Duchess ! 

There was light and life, love, and happy laughter 
in Xenie’s beautiful cottage home by the lake on this 
night. For the Grand Duke had stolen into “ Le 
Rossignol,” and, leaning in ecstasy over Xenie’s beau- 
tiful shoulders, watched her jeweled fingers straying 
over the piano’s keys while she sang as sweetly as 
ever any full-throated Russian nightingale ! And, that 
concert was heard far down in Hell ! 

And when the week of stolen love had been dreamed 
away, and the Grand Duke was forced away to the 
field, both the noble and his serpent spy knew that the 
Princess Prascovie had sailed from Southampton for 
New York City. 

And, on the same vessel, skulking in the steerage, 
was the spy whom Kalomine had sent on to Berlin, 
onlv to make sure of the Princess’s every movement. 

And yet, a fierce storm of anger, mingled with sud- 
den terrors, swept over the Baroness Xenie’s heart ! 
Her golden fortunes were imperiled, for a lion had 
been loosened upon her pathway ! 

It was a story of the spy sent back from Berlin which 
made her shiver with new and unknown fears ! 


164 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

Too well she knew all the devilish malignity of the 
Grand Duke, the stern severity of the Czar, and the 
unshrinking bravery of the high-souled Princess 
Prascovie. 

Her golden fortunes were trembling now in the bal- 
ance. 

And the frightened woman hastened to call Alex- 
andre Kalomine to her side. 

For there had suddenly risen up an avenger of the 
plundered Marie Kriloff, the lovely orphan who had 
been hounded with remorselessness and had madly 
thrown her life away. 

And the next day, while the Baroness Xenie and 
Kalomine plotted the final destruction of the fugitive 
wife, the Intendant and Xenie’s maid were busied in 
the preparations for the lady’s sudden journey abroad. 

“ This is a serious matter, Xenie,” concluded Kalo- 
mine. “ And vet, we have time to act, and so close 
up all our lines ! I will escort you as far as Alexan- 
drowno, and then, make a flying visit to the Grand 
Duke, finding him en route between the camps ; for 
not a line — not a spoken word— must be risked to com- 
promise us ! The stout-hearted Princess Prascovie 
will be in New York City long before you can sail! 
If Prince Paul and Marie are really in America, they 
are safe there from everything, save his mad extrav- 
agance, and the lassitude of satiety growing up be- 
tween them, with the inevitable hand of misfortune ! 
Paul will soon squander everything within reach — and 
we must now crush them all ! Their last resource is 
the Princess, and I can soon cripple her ! Mark me, 
you will never hear from her ! For the mask is off — 
she knows you now as her bitterest enemy, and sees 
the Grand Duke as he is,” whispered Kalomine. Be- 
sides, she has fathomed the secret of Wraxine’s money 
business.” 

“And, what must I do now?” demanded Xenie. 

“ Your part is easy,” smiled the banker ; “ only to fol- 
low on leisurely, and to act as directed by me. My 
secret agent — Anton Mertvod — will leave all his re- 
ports for you at the Russian Consulate General, in New 
York City. There you can find his address, and safe- 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 1 65 

ly call him to you. It is no longer a campaign of vio- 
lence ! It needs but the fine hand now ! And all your 
letters of direction from the Grand Duke and myself 
you will receive at the Consulate ; for, you know, neith- 
er Paul nor Marie dare even communicate with them, 
and the Princess Prascovie will surely avoid that gos- 
siping official ! For, she now fears the Grand Duke. 
And you will be safe, as your letters will go and come 
in the sealed Government bag to the Consulate General 
in New York City. But it is truly a dangerous junc- 
ture ! We must now crush the Princess to separate 
Paul and Marie ! After that — misery and shame will 
soon drag the women both down ! ” 

“ And Paul ? ” anxiously cried Xenie. 

“ Let him go to the devil in his own way ! ” growled 
Kalomine. “ He is as heartless as a Kurd, and the 
slave of his wild passions — pleasure, riotous living — 
and the next pretty face will do the work ! ” Xenie 
•smiled a wicked smile ! For, her lover had only told 
the truth ! 

“ I told you that wfe should have crushed Weinstock 
while he was in your power ! ” accusingly said Xenie. 

“ Remember, Duischka, that if we had openly pun- 
ished him for his robberies/’ calmly replied the banker, 
“ you would never had Marie helpless on your hands ; 
for the two hundred thousand roubles would have gone 
to her — Wraxine never would have had his bride — 
you would have never gained vour influence over the 
Grand Duke! No! Marie had her value! She was 
your trump card ! The game is made ! And now, the 
useless pack can be thrown away ! Moreover, Wein- 
stock could have easily betrayed the secret operations 
of the Imperial Bank — of the Neckers — and all our 
great financiers here, if we had pushed him to the wall. 
His offense was usury only, and for that alone, we- 
could not kill him. or even send him to Siberia! The 
Jews are too powerful — their hidden cabals have 
wound shameful bonds around our greatest men ! The 
whole Tewish monev world would have revenged it- 
self!” 

“ And now, with this new dangerous intelligence — 
with all the secrets of the Grand Duke’s speculations 


166 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

in his power — free, at Berlin — can you not ‘ remove ’ 
him — in some safe way?” Xenie Karovitch’s agitated 
face showed the lust of murder. “ You will not let 
him disgrace me forever ! ” 

There were tears in the siren’s eyes; for she dreaded 
the stern rage of Princess Prascovie. 

“To be published as a thief — to be degraded at 
Court — to lose the Grand Duke’s favor” — the wom- 
an’s reflections showed her the abyss before her ! 

“ Ah ! Foolish Little One,” laughed Kalomine, 
drawing her toward him. “ To use violence toward 
Matthias Weinstock would be worse than a crime — it 
would be a mistake! No! I shall, after explaining 
all to the Grand Duke, run on to Berlin and ask 
Matthias Weinstock to dine with me! He is a He- 
brew — and purchasable ! He shall be placed on the 
list of ‘Secret Agents,’ under mv own orders! We 
will buy him — and — so — own him ! The Grand Duke 
must order it — and — sanction it ! As Inspector-Gen- 
eral he can use Weinstock — as a foreign agent! No! 
Xenie ! We will stuff his mouth with good green 
roubles ! And then, you and I, dearest, hold the Grand 
Duke’s honor between us ! He fears the Rovno frauds 
being discovered ! I hold all his private life in my hand 
— as his secret financial agent — you hold the dangerous 
secret history of the Rovno Corps contracts ! And 
now, Golubtchik, when you return you shall marry 
me — at once ! With the Grand Duke as the Pere 
d’honneur, we are above even the Czar’s resentment ! 
There is but one weak spot in our armor — Barbe Any- 
koff! Does she know anything?” 

“ Nothing but the story of my little past amour- 
ettes,’ blushed Xenie ; “ and, I hold her own, as a fair 
counterpoise.” 

“ Then,” laughed Kalomine, “ you are certainly 
safe ! For, she is a veritable man eater ! ” 

It was a strange story, this spy’s report ! The Prin- 
cess Prascovie, followed to the Hotel Bristol, in Ber- 
lin, by the spy, rested on her journey, while waiting 
the replies to her letters to London ; for the bankers 
there, alone, held the secret of Paul’s whereabouts. 

Anton Mertvod — the spy — had well played his part, 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 167 

and he eagerly watched the long hours of conference 
of the anxious mother with Matthias Weinstock, the 
fugitive lawyer, now a Bourse runner and money agent 
in Berlin. 

The spy had escorted Princess Prascovie to Dover, . 
and his winning sympathy had drawn out the whole 
story from Princess Zastrow’s surcharged heart. 

Her rage at the discovery of Xenie’s perfidy, the 
cruel theft of Marie’s birthright, the two hundred 
thousand roubles recovered from the money-lenders, 
had all given Matthias Weinstock the hope of that bit- 
ter revenge for which he thirsted. And yet, neither the 
exiled lawyer nor the Princess dreamed of the great 
banker, Kalomine’s, complicity! 

Liberal-hearted Prascovie had crossed Matthias 
Weinstock’s palm with five thousand roubles of her 
little fund, gained by the sale of half her splendid jew- 
els. 

And this had brought her the news which gladdened 
her soul ! For the crafty Weinstock’s brain was filled 
with every detail of the life at Rovno and Odessa. 

When Michel Wraxine fell, like an oak uprooted in 
the storm, no one noted, in the hurry of the arrival of 
the new Corps Commander, the gliding away of Casi- 
mir Kinsk v, the sly maitre d’hotel who had ministered 
for years to General W raxine’s pleasures and aided his 
daring amours ! 

None but the perfidious, smooth-tongued Pole knew 
that the watchful Wraxine had left the funds which dis- 
appeared stored in the strong boxes of the private 
Headquarters, at the Cercle de Noblesse, in Rovno. 

While the honest old Chief of Staff hung over the 
helpless invalid, the artful Polish bodyservant had 
gathered up, in Villa Lubomirski and the vacant bach- 
elor Headquarters, all Wraxine’s jewels and valuables. 

Possessed of his master’s keys, he had hastily rifled 
the funds and secreted them before the slow-witted 
Colonel Tcherchinsky began his search for the papers. 

The rugged old Colonel only thought of that which 
might compromise the stricken man, while the sly serv- 
ant paid himself for the long years of pandering to 
Wraxine’s secret vices. 


1 68 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

Casimir Kinsky had, in twenty years, wormed him- 
self into his master’s heart life ! He was the necessary 
“ famulus ” who knew of all the secret conferences of 
the Grand Duke and Wraxine; of the division of the 
• spoil between the agents of Necker and the corrupt 
General ; of the secret dalliance of Xenie and Wraxine, 
in betrayal of the marriage with Marie. 

And, with sleepless eyes, he had watched, in Wrax- 
ine’s absence at Odessa, the Grand Duke’s stealthy ap- 
proaches to the unprotected wife. 

With all the deep dissimulation of the Pole, the 
scoundrel had veiled himself to all eyes ! 

And too well he knew that his dangerous secrets 
would cost him his life in Russia, should the fiery 
Grand Duke Anatole, or the Necker cormorants, ever 
learn of his betrayal. Flight was his only safeguard ! 

Casimir Kinsky had easily gained the Austrian fron- 
tier at Kudzilov, only fifty miles from Rovno, and he 
was safe in Lemberg, long before his departure from 
the Villa Lubomirski had been noted! 

And though he had no passport, a hundred roubles 
paid to one of the Polish frontier agents had smuggled 
him safely out of Holy Russia. 

With fear and trembling, he avoided changing any 
bulk of his stolen money at the frontier. 

There was the telegraph ! He might be apprehended 
and returned, perhaps, to die under the knout in 
Siberia. 

It was to Berlin, the great money-center, that he 
hastened, and in looking around for a safe agent, found 
the wary Matthias Weinstock as the manager of a 
great money-broker, on the Unter den Linden. 

Kinsky had easily recognized Weinstock, for in 
General Wraxine’s money-borrowing days, many 
times the smooth usurer had been privately ushered 
into Wraxine’s sleeping-room by the confidential valet. 

Two sly rogues had played hide and seek for a week. 

The absconding Kinsky had no papers, and, so 
changing a few thousand roubles, he bought the pass- 
port of a dead Russian from Matthias Weinstock, for 
this same worthy hung around the great Friedrich- 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 169 

strasse Bahnhof to prey upon all classes of Russians in 
that great omnium gatherum. 

Only after a week of dinners and sly conferences, 
had Kinsky prevailed upon Weinstock to change the 
whole stolen hoard of paper roubles into good, red, 
German gold. 

It had needed an adroit agent to separate the paper 
and break it up between twenty banks, for the sup- 
posed theft of the missing military funds by Prince 
Paul Zastrow had set all the “ agents de change ” on 
the qui vive, to aid the Russian secret service in the 
arrest of Zastrow. 

A ten per cent, bonus paid to Matthias Weinstock 
had effected the transfer, and when Kinsky left Berlin, 
he carried away a lifetime fortune in good German 
and French gold, and in Bank of England notes, 
French billets de Banque de Franc, and German paper. 

In vain, the adroit Weinstock tried to get a draft 
into Casimir Kinsky’s hands ! The sly Pole was too 
adroit, and now, the stolen paper roubles had only 
passed through the Jew’s hands. 

And Matthias Weinstock had only told the truth, 
when, with tears in his eyes, he refused Princess Pras- 
covie’s offer of five thousand roubles, more, nearly the 
whole remainder of her ready cash, to disclose the 
hiding place of the astute Casimir Kinsky. 

The wily Jew had been outwitted by the sly Polish 
thief — both of them fond of woman’s smile, Kinsky 
had begged Weinstock to arrange a little carte blanche 
dinner, for four, at the choicest restaurant of the 
Griinewald. 

And it was so plausible — the timid Pole desired to 
hide from the thronging Russian spies in Berlin. 

He would join the feast after Matthias Weinstock 
had conveyed their fair companions out to the restau- 
rant. 

And, at last, the bright-eyed divinities of the Bal 
d’Amour, on the Pragerstrasse, had forced the anx- 
ious Weinstock to serve the splendid dinner! 

Every moment he anxiously waited for the arrival of 
Kinsky — even up to midnight — but, he fell back in his 


170 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

chair, speechless, when the Oberkellner handed him an 
envelope. 

The dancing girls gayly seized upon the two hundred 
mark bills, which fell on the floor, as Weinstock read 
the few words : 

“ Here is the price of the dinner. Thanks for busy- 
ing yourself all afternoon and evening with the ladies. 
I was on the quickest express train long before you 
left your office this morning. Don’t try to follow me ! 
The world is wide ! As for the Russian dogs — neither 
old Wraxine, if he recovers his wdts, nor the Grand 
Duke, nor even the Neckers, dare to punish me! I 
know too much, but — do swidanya — you’ll never see 
me again ! ” 

“ And, now, Xenie,” said Director-General Kalo- 
mine, “ you see the Prince Zastrow can not be pun- 
ished for the theft. There is no proof against him, but 
he is sacrificed by his military desertion. This Pole 
could not be punished. There is only a lying Jew’s 
tale to incriminate him, and he will never reappear in 
Europe. But, I will make Matthias Weinstock my 
tool. He shall be my sword of Damocles hanging over 
the Grand Duke’s head. And, the Czar shall pay him 
well! The Princess Prascovie can do nothing! She 
has no proof, but in a year, I will crush the whole three, 
simply to protect ourselves, and, to save the Grand 
Duke! ” • 

“ You must! ” cried Xenie. “ We must destroy the 
Zastrows and Marie — the white-faced fool ! Remem- 
ber the Czar’s sudden furies — his outraged honesty! 
There is the Black Sea fleet scandal — it pulled down 
one Grand Duke; the American adventuress and the 
diamond thefts sent another Grand Duke to a nameless 
grave in disgrace! If the Czar should unearth this 
Rovno jobbery, then Grand Duke Anatole’s fall would 
drag us down! ” 

“ You are right,” said Kalomine, his face suddenly 
paling. “We might feed the rats in the underground 
dungeon of the fortress ! But, as long as you and I are 
true to each other — as long as I keep Matthias Wein- 
stock alive and out of Russia, we are the secret rulers of 
the Grand Duke! You must follow Anton Mertvod on 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 171 

to America ; you must travel incognito ; spare no 
money ; you shall swim in gold, but locate the two 
women, and then follow my orders ! Paul is doomed 
with his dissipations, but we must dispose of the Prin- 
cess Prascovie and the wayward Marie. I fear but one 
— it is the brave Princess — for,” gravely said Kalo- 
mine, “ the Czar Alexandre is honest, and he would 
/isten to her 1 She must never return to Russia ! ” 

“ How can you prevent that? ” faltered Xenie, gaz- 
ing at Kalomine’s fierce eyes. 

“ She must be ruined, and Mertvod and this Jew 
lawyer must alarm the Grand Duke! He can have her 
passport canceled ; he can have all our foreign officers 
ordered to refuse her a legal visa ! ” 

“ And, on what pretext? ” cried the puzzled Xenie. 
“ On the pretense of living abroad in luxury, with 
her spendthrift son, on the proceeds of the theft of the 
military chest! ” 

“ You are a genius! ” cried Xenie, throwing her 
arms around him ; “ and, I now promise you,” her 
words were smothered in passionate kisses, “ that I 
will marry you on my return, and together, we will 
reign over the Grand Duke! ” 

It was a month later when the “ Touraine ” swept 
up the splendid expanse of the bay of New York, and 
Madame la Baronne Xenie Karovitch laughingly bade 
adieu to her cavaliers de voyage. 

The beautiful Russian had been the toast of the voy- 
age and a living mystery. Even the jaded “ fashion- 
ables ” of the American set wondered whether the 
“ Baroness Anna Milanoff ” was en route to queen it 
at Washington, the city of Mexico, Pekin, or Tokio! 
They only knew that the lady was “ on a diplomatic 
quest”; that her personal fascinations were gracefully 
self-evident; that she had her grave-faced Intendant, 
her maid, and page in her train, and that she was 
“ tres adroite ” in keeping her own secrets and extract- 
ing those of others ! 

Not one of the sighing swains knew whither “ la 
belle Russe ” was driven, when the Russian Consul 
General, with magic influence, passed her through the 
custom’s lines. 


172 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

Sighs and fond heart throbs followed her as she 
laughingly waved adieu to her “ amants de voyage/’ 
but, the lady was acutely interested that night at the 
Hotel Buckingham when Anton Mertvod waited upon 
Madame Xenie with her letters and cablegrams, and 
made his first report. 

“ Prince Paul Zastrow is here, mingling in the gay 
world under his own name. He is plunging madly 
into every dissipation, and he has already pawned all 
Madame Wraxine’s jewels. As for the Princess Pras- 
covie and the Generals fugitive wife, the one landed 
and disappeared, and the other is hidden away. My 
orders only were to set all the Russians whom I could 
find on the track and lead away the reckless Paul ! 
You will have to find the ladies ! ” 

“ Good,” cried the excited Xenie. “ With the mask 
of my mother’s name to shield me, and the help of the 
Russian priest, I will soon find Marie Kriloff, for she 
was always a devotee ! But, the Princess Prascovie in 
hiding? This is dangerous! ” 


CHAPTER X. 

EXPIATION. 

Three days after the arrival of the Baroness Xenie 
upon the hospitable shores of Manhattan Island, a 
stately, middle-aged woman, clad in black, turning out 
of Broadway, paced slowly down a side street to the 
quaint purlieus of Gramercy Park. 

The gloomy silence of the sleepy old Park was pe- 
culiarly depressing on this stifling, dusky August even- 
ing. 

The sultry day’s heat seemed to cling to the very 
pavements, and even the nightfall had brought no re- 
lief. 

Policeman Clancy, trifling on a corner, lazily 
watched the aimless movements of the lonely prome- 
nader. 

“ One of them there reduced gentlewomen,” mused 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 173 

the stalwart policeman. “ They comes here to dream 
over them old times, when their rich grandfathers 
owned the earth ! 

The bluecoat knew but too well the faded grandeurs 
of the historic old Gramercy Farm. He was familiar 
with the decayed gentlemen and bookish old men who 
sadly took the air in the aristocratic reservation 
clamped between the vulgarity of Third Avenue, the 
shabby-genteel barriers of Fourth Avenue, and laced 
in between cross streets now given up to boarding- 
houses of ephemeral duration and plaintive discomfort. 

It is a place where many poignant sorrows are car- 
ried locked up in the bosoms of lonely promenaders ; 
and the Princess Prascovie Zastrow was heavy heart- 
ed as she made the circuit of the square garden thrice, 
lost in her battle with present cares and unavailing past 
regrets. 

A brave, pathetic, lonely figure — this solitary, mid- 
dle-aged woman — the mother who had crossed the 
wide Atlantic to stand by the fugitive wife, whose only 
shield was her son’s honor. 

High minded and truthful to others, steadfast and 
loyal in her own noble heart, this Russian mother, 
Prascovie Zastrow, hesitated now before facing the 
woman around whom, darker shadows than those of 
night were now closing fast. 

As a bell chimed the hour of nine, the Princess 
sighed and then slowly walked up the steps of the one 
old mansion-house in the Park, which had been sur- 
reptitiously “ opened ” as a refined boarding estab- 
lishment ” ! 

The tide of disaster which is sweeping away the 
“ old families ” — the key-bearing aristocrats of the 
Park, the “ owners ” — had some years before carried 
out into the breakers of poverty, the forgotten Knick- 
erbocker who had fondly builded his family home, 
sacred to him and his heirs forever. 

And a hawk-eyed relict of a departed Gothamite 
now mingled surface politeness and underlying cupid- 
ity in her reign over the “ guests,” founded upon ? 
deep, rocky stratum of eternal curiosity. 

And so. when the door was opened to Madame Zas- 


174 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

trow, with a frosty smile, the Cerberus allowed “ the 
strange Russian lady ” to at once mount, “ au second,” 
to the apartment of “ the other Russian lady.” 

The transparent fiction of this “ refined home,” as to 
the “ guests ” being anxious to share “ all the comforts 
of a home ” through gregarious social sympathies, 
was violated in the case of the pale, stately beauty who 
opened her “ parlor ” door on this night to the Prin- 
cess Prascovie Zastrow. 

For, the silent Marie Wraxine was an enigma — an 
unanswered riddle — even to Mrs. Euphrosyne Daniels, 
the alert “ proprietress,” who had. up to this juncture, 
untied every Gordian social knot presented to her by 
the ebb and flow of her “ guests.” 

The beautiful woman who occupied the one hand- 
some rear room, second floor, with its alcove bedroom, 
adroitly flung out over an old conservatory, locked 
her secrets in her gentle bosom ! The suspicious cir- 
cumstance of her one luxury of a private service had 
been forgotten in the two months of her residence. 

And, as neither visits, letters, telegrams, signs of ex- 
travagance, or any other marks of a double life, were 
marked up against the “ Russian lady,” she was ad- 
judged to be either suffering the monopoly of a great 
sorrow, or enjoying the distinction of continued ill- 
health. 

And so, Mrs. Euphrosyne Daniels was forced to 
“ possess her soul ” in a fretful inertia of wonderment. 

On this August evening, two persons shared the 
great sorrow which had been but dimly discovered — 
and yet correctly diagnosed. 

For, when the door was securely locked, Marie 
Wraxine threw herself impulsively upon Princess 
Prascovie’s bosom. 

“ Paul ? ” she cried. 

“ No news, my own darling,” sadly answered the 
heartsick mother. “ He is, as usual, with his 
friends ! ” 

And, then and there, Prascovie Zastrow thanked 
God that the lonely woman, whose yearning eyes now 
dumbly questioned her, could neither speak nor read 
the English language. 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


175 


It was in their own beloved Russian tongue that the 
sharers of a living sorrow exchanged their griefs ; and, 
for prudential reasons, no French or German newspa- 
pers were available to the woman who had left a 
princely luxury to be swept by fate into this gloomy 
“ second floor back ” of the furtively conducted “ aris- 
tocratic boarding-house.” 

Marie knew now but one blessing — the daily pres- 
ence of the gallant-souled woman who had cheerfully 
taken a vacant sleeping-room above (a case of Hob- 
son’s choice), and now, shared the modest menage 
with the fugitive wife. 

An hour later, Marie Wraxine had sobbed herself 
to sleep, and the Princess Prascovie sat by her side, 
tenderly holding the thinned white hand which she 
dared not drop, for fear of wakening the uneasy sleep- 
er. There were no flashing diamonds on the slender 
fingers now, and — alas — there was no golden wed- 
ding ring, either, as a mark of the condition of wife- 
hood. 

Princess Prascovie’s firm, earnest face was carved 
with deep wrinkles now. and sudden streakings of gray 
hair lent to her middle years, the added dignity of 
care and sorrow. 

A man in her rugged honesty — a woman in her del 1 
icate tenderness — Prascovie Zastrow looked down in 
yearning love upon the lonely sleeper. 

There was still the thrilling beauty of Marie’s lovelv 
face ; the exquisite symmetry of her molded form ; but 
the cheeks were all too pale, the eyes were sunken in 
sorrow, and thin, blue veins plaintively marked the 
wasted temples. 

“ I dare not tell her — I can not break her dream of 
love ! ” murmured Prascovie, as the sleeper stirred, but 
only to murmur “ Paul,” with a smile parting her deli- 
cate lips. 

There were tears of tenderness in the Princess’ kind- 
lv eyes as she murmured : “ I must take her away 

from here, else she will die — an alien here ! For, when 
she learns the sad, sad truth, as learn it finally, she 
must, it w : ll kill her! And where! Oh! My God! 
Where is there a haven for her! ” 


176 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

The four months since the fatal morning when the 
“ Oscar’s ” flitting silver sails had gleamed on the blue 
Odessa Bay had changed the stately Pearl Queen into 
a wistful, trembling woman — a moral coward — one 
who dared not look back upon her path, and before 
whom the shadows and darkness were now gathered. 

Prascovie Zastrow’s lofty soul revolted at all these 
mean shams — the cowardly lies of the four weeks since 
she had first stepped upon this unfriendly alien shore. 

Stealing off the steamer, the mother, with just fore- 
bodings, forebore to use her own name or station. 

She had not needed to use prudence in searching out 
Paul, her wild, spendthrift son; for, all the journals of 
Vanity Fair were now harking upon his lurid path. 

It had been easy for her to find out from the bankers 
his club address as the “ Cosmopolitan.” 

And, while the mother, modestly registered as 
“ Madame Prascovitch,” at the Bayadere Hotel, a safe- 
ly distant mercantile hostelry, breathlessly waited for 
her son, Prince Paul Zastrow was on a far-away yacht, 
skimming the waves of Long Island Sound, himself 
the “ preux chevalier ” of the gay party on the “ Co- 
lumbus.” 

Bitter hearted, the mother sought out the bankers, 
and, thanks to her excellent English, was soon enabled 
to discover Marie’s whereabouts. 

“ I believe that the Prince has no friends here,” slow- 
ly said the banker, after gazing at his visitor’s dignified 
face, “ except his cousin, Madame Olga Zacharoff, 
who resides at Mrs. Daniels’s, Gramercy Park.” 

And so, before Paul Zastrow had returned from his 
gay yachting cruise,' the Princess Zastrow had clasped 
Marie in her arms. 

She dared not tell the helpless woman of the added 
disgrace now blackening Paul’s name, but she listened, 
heavy hearted, to the story of their unhappy flight! 

And, before Paul had glozed over his two months 
of dissipation in New York, the Princess knew where 
Marie Wraxine’s jewels had gone ! 

“ The old, old story ! ” faltered Prascovie that night, 
as she wept alone in her straitened room at the Bay- 
adere. “ It is the beginning of the end ! ” 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 1 77 

She could look back twenty-five years to the mad 
profusion of Paul’s reckless father — the wild, proud- 
hearted Boyar, who had gambled away whole villages, 
sacrificed vast forests, squandered her own dowry, 
and poured out the wine of his life right and left 
among the riotous crew of High Life — from the Neva 
to Nice, and from the Derby race days on Epsom 
Downs to the wild gambling nights of Yalta. 

And, when Paul, with a lowering brow, at last had 
welcomed her; when she had heard all his new fan- 
tastic projects ; his easily vamped up self-acquittal ; his 
stormy social splendors in this great human hive of 
New York, she saw, at once, that Paul had deliberately 
sacrificed Marie Wraxine, an offering to his love of 
himself ! 

His first demand was for money, his second word, a 
stern command that his mother should style herself 
Madame Zacharoff during her stay in New York — 
during her American wanderings. For her life must 
be made a lie to fit his own reckless social arrange- 
ments, so as to hide Marie’s identity. 

The mother’s eves were blinded with tears as she 
listened to the young roue’s specious pleadings. 

“ It was forced on me,” he gloomily said. “ I could 
not allow. Marie to use her own name. She has no le- 
gal papers ! It would be madness to use her real name. 
There are Russian officials here — the Consul-General 
and his staff, the Priest and others ; there is the Lega- 
tion at Washington ; a lot of officers here watching the 
building of war vessels, and many army men and offi- 
cials are always passing around the world! To pro- 
tect her, she is supposed to be my cousin — Madame 
Olga Zacharoff — and — you— must be Madame Zach- 
aroff ! It is done simply to conceal her shame.” 

“ Her shame? ” echoed the heartbroken mother. 

“ To protect her, then — a la fin ” — cried the excited 
Paul. “ I could not set her up here as my wife, for a 
dozen men here know me. I am in the best society — 
I have my plans — there are always openings — and — 
she is safe where she is ! I can not marry her — while 
Wraxine lives! You know that he never would give 
her a divorce — and — all that I owe him is a meeting 


i 7 8 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


on the field of honor ! I can do no more ! ” desper- 
ately cried the fugitive soldier. It was the coward and 
bully’s position ! 

It was long after midnight when Paul Zastrow knew 
the black record left stretching out behind him — all the 
ignominy of the alleged theft — the fatal sacrifice of his 
citizenship — his noble rank — and his powerlessness to 
defend his honor. 

The mother watched him as he strode wolfishly up 
and down the room ; his graceful, manly beauty was 
now at its zenith; his form supple and elegant; his 
dark eyes mournfully tender ; his face as bright and 
brave as the Archangel’s, and his voice soft, low, and 
heart-reaching. 

To the exquisite refinement of the patrician, he add- 
ed all the aplomb of the guardsman, and the easy car- 
riage of the reckless, magnificent Russian noble ! 
Prince Charming, par excellence ! 

Stunned and shaken at heart, the mother, an adept 
in the cold game of Life, saw clearly that the despairing 
devotion of Marie Wraxine had, for return, only the 
calm sufferance of this victorious Don Juan. 

It was not from the lonely woman in Gramercy Park 
that the Princess drew out the story of sated passion ; 
of the broken charm ; of the wearying* weight of the 
lightly borne chain of love, now heavier than forged 
steel. 

For, self-devoted and heroic, the unhappy Marie had 
given herself over, heart, soul, and life, to this same 
tender-eyed Prince Charming. 

Purposeless and vain, Paul Zastrow, on flimsy pre- 
texts, had easily fled away, after his mother's arrival, to 
the pleasures of the gilded world around him. 

With a shudder, the Princess Zastrow looked back 
at the wretched Marie’s two months' virtual imprison- 
ment. 

For, stealing out, veiled, to meet her indifferent 
lover, she had only snatched a few hours every week 
in his company. 

And, now that the first month of her American life 
had passed, Prascovie Zastrow knew that her son had 
given himself over to every mad riot of the giddy 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 179 

American pleasure seekers, who had opened their arms 
to the Prince Paul Zastrow. For there was a glamour 
in his title of Prince — a real Prince — a charming 
Prince! On this night, when the helpless Marie lay- 
dreaming under her friend’s eyes, the lofty-minded 
Princess saw the gulf which already separated the two 
rash fugitives, for Marie’s only daily safe pilgrimage 
was to the Russian church, where the Princess feared 
to accompany her. for fear of being recognized and 
exposing their joint shame. And now, the sad-hearted 
mother knew her son to be light-minded, reckless, 
heartless, faithless, and already unfaithful, even in 
sin, to the woman who had laid down her lofty rank 
and dragged her soul in the mire to please his mere 
fancy of an hour ! 

“ My God ! what a punishment — what a soul sacri- 
fice ! ” the wretched mother faltered. “ There is no 
way back into Paradise — there is no reparation pos- 
sible here below — no rebuilding of the desecrated 
altar ! ” And she, who had sacrificed all her fortune 
for the young ravisher, knew, too, that Paul Zastrow 
was false to her — to his mother — to the woman who 
had given him life. 

And, ignorant still of the inner tragedy of the lone- 
ly orphan’s life ; all unconscious of the conspiracy 
which had thrust her forth — soul naked — to be the 
scorn and plaything of men, Princess Prascovie Zas- 
trow fell on her knees by that lonely bedside and 
prayed for help to the God of the fatherless. 

“ He shall marry her — he must walk the path of 
honor — and yet, I must take her. away! For, there is 
now the slow, daily, eating sorrow in her eyes which 
at last brings madness into the haunted brain.” 

Her own coming had forced upon Paul Zastrow a 
certain perfunctory courtesy — for, he could now come 
and visit the “ aunt ” and her niece, without loosening 
the poisoned arrows of slander upon the woman whom 
he had led away into the cold shadows of the “ half 
world.” 

And — when the sunlight came again to wake Marie 
Wraxine from the cheating reprieve of dreams — Paul 
Zastrow, honey-voiced and sweetly smiling, came, with 


i8o 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


love in his eyes and all his lying glamour, to plead at 
his mother’s side. 

There were but two thousand roubles left of Pras- 
covie’s hard-won traveling funds when Paul went forth 
lightly with the moiety which he had gained by his 
specious tale of a “ golden opportunity.” 

The fates were kind to the two women who now 
hung on his every movement ; for neither of them ever 
knew, when he returned with gloomy brow after three 
days, that the harpies set on his track by Xenie Karo- 
vitch were laughing over their easy victory at play ! 

For, it had been easy for Kalomine’s woman spy to 
pick up Paul’s glittering trail in “ high life ” ; and so, 
with a cool malignity, she set the spoilers on him, to 
lead him on, on the Dance of Death ! 

And, in her easy luxury, she laughed gayly, while 
Anton Mertvod was hastening back to St. Petersburg 
to take up again the duties of spy and agent de police. 

Crouching on Paul’s path, the Baroness Xenie only 
waited the hour to give Marie over to the machinations 
of the Russian Consul. 

“ He has hidden her,” laughed Xenie, “and — per- 
haps under old Princess Prascovie's care ! But, given 
a week, and I will find her — for, if she is alive, she is 
not far from this same Prince Charming.” 

There was an astonishing surprise in store for Prince 
Paul Zastrow when he roughly demanded further 
moneys from the mother on whose saddened face he 
now saw the signs of evident distrust. 

“ I have no more money left, Paul ! You have 
thrown away fifty thousand roubles in four months ! 
Are you mad?” 

The answer was an oath, and the last threat was one 
which left the mother alone, trembling in helpless sor- 
row. 

“ You have your jewels — sell them! I must have 
money — or, we must part! I leave her fate in your 
hands ! ” 

The gentle-eyed, dark-robed woman, whom none 
knew, save as a graceful stranger, was kneeling in the 
Russian chapel — far away — when Paul brought out his 
renewed brutal demands for monev. 


^HE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. l8l 

And so, it was with simple long sufferance and an 
ignorance of her lover’s treachery that Marie strove to 
comfort the agonized mother, who now saw the jaws 
of Fate closing upon the helpless woman — branded an 
outcast by her madly born love. 

But, a stranger in a strange land, and dependent 
upon the money-lenders in her own country, the Prin- 
cess dared not tell Marie of the iron poverty looming 
up before her! 

“ Heedless, unfaithful, a gambler, a desperate ego- 
tist, Paul will soon cast her off to starve ! There is but 
one chance left ! I have vet the means to save her ! ” 

And then, throwing her arms around Marie, she 
murmured: “We must go away, my poor child! 
This is a false martyrdom — only a soul murder for you ! 
I must be free to throw myself down before the Em- 
peror and beg Paul’s pardon ! You shall be free when 
I have cleared Paul’s name ! T will find you a safe shel- 
ter in South Germany. I will trace out this Casimir 
Kinskv ! I will clear Paul’s honor — and — he must 
marry you ! But, you must leave him now ! You must 
go away with me ! For his sake — for your sake — for 
my sake ! ” 

And then, Prascovie Zastrow’ started, as Marie’s head 
fell like a lily beaten down by the storm. 

“ It is too late ! I dare not ! I can not leave him 
now! For God’s sake — spare me this! You do not 
know what you ask ! ” 

And, seeing the agony upon her face, the Princess 
forebore to press the sorrows of that proud and break- 
ing heart ; for well she knew, now, that Marie Wraxine 
felt within her own heart that she was but a helpless 
burden to the man who had dragged her down. 

There was a smile of astonished gratitude on the face 
of Father Agapeo Honcharanko as he listened, that aft- 
ernoon, to the musical voice of the disguised Baroness 
Xenie Karovitch. 

The Russian priest’s modest dwelling had never been 
illumined by such grace and elegance. 

The bearded pastor tried in vain to read the beauty 
of the smiling face hidden by that doubled, filmy Cir- 
cassian veil. 


1 82 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


There was the ring of a fervent gratitude in his voice 
as he accepted a thousand roubles as an offering to the 
church. 

“ We are poor here, my daughter,” the Greek eccle- 
siastic said. “ The Czar nobly pays half the expenses 
of church and pastorate; but we must soon have a 
larger church and a more fitting priestly residence. 
Here, on the East Side, surrounded with Jews and 
struggling foreigners, we are not in a dignified home! 
You have seen the chapel! ” 

And then, in broken accents, Xenie told of her jour- 
ney — her haste — and promised him a visit on her re- 
turn, and a further donation. 

She sighed as she drew out a photograph. 

“ Even my cousin, whom I have never met, I have 
lost in the whirl of this great city. There are family 
papers to deliver— and I am forced to leave them here 
with the Consul.” 

The priest’s eyes lightened as he gazed on Marie 
Wraxine’s pictured face. 

“ Thank God that I can aid you in your quest,” he 
said. “ This lady has been here nearly three months. 
It is Madame Olga Zacharoff . is it not ? I only know 
that she is alone — and she lives in Gramercy Park ! 
She has been in the confessional in the last month. I 
only know T her name from the sacristan, but she comes 
daily to pray in the chapel at three o’clock. And so, 
you can meet her ! Shall I bear your message ? ” 

Baroness Xenie kneeled devoutly. “ Give me your 
blessing, Father! Say nothing of my visit! On my 
return, in a month, I will come to you, in the confes- 
sional. I do not wish to surprise her. I hasten to the 
Consulate to obtain the papers ! ” 

Father Agapeo sighed as the beautiful woman has- 
tened away. He had even forgotten to ask her name — 
he had not seen that veiled face — but, all he knew was 
that she was young, and her bearing was that of the 
aristocracy. 

“ Alas ! Only the children of poverty come to me ! ” 
he mused, and then — kept his counsel, for he saw, glit- 
tering before him, another present. 

When the dark-robed Marie stole into the church 


THE SHIELD OE HIS HONOR. 183 

that afternoon, she threw herself down before the altar 
in an agony of grief ! 

She saw no help as she gazed, through her tears, at 
the holy icon. There was a living secret now, which 
she had guarded, in a sudden terror, and she shuddered 
at the kind insistence of the Princess Prascovie. 

And, while the mother of her lover, left in the lonely 
rooms, steeled her heart for decisive action, the pale 
woman on her knees could not hide the crushing truth 
from herself! 

She alone knew under what cowardly pretense the 
reckless Paul had abandoned her to her silent sorrows ! 
She felt that she was a mere burdfcn upon the once 
chivalric lover ! 

But, Prascovie Zastrow saw the gulf of misery open- 
ing before the helpless, fugitive wife. 

In her happier days — in the time when her own dead 
husband, Prince Zastrow, was the head of the Russian 
Embassy in London — Prascovie had become an adept 
in the English language. And, as she read now all the 
leading journals, she could follow easily the course of 
her son’s unbridled gayeties. 

The casting to the winds of fifty thousand roubles ; 
the ignoble sale of Marie's jewels, to bear him up in his 
dissipations, and the last gambling episode, had un- 
veiled the brutal heartlessness of her reckless son. 

Paul had basely abandoned the woman who waited 
for him all these weary hours, to plunge into the follies 
of the lazy New York parvenues who worshiped his 
princely title. 

Prascovie had easily recognized Paul’s social spon- 
sor — a declasse social Russian renegade — a young 
noble who had been chased out of Russia, and even 
warned away from the hell of Monte Carlo ! 

Parasite, roue, and card sharper, this was the Lepo- 
rello who led Paul Zastrow into circles where his hand- 
some face and. soft, wooing voice carried him into the 
inner coterie of a band of light-minded women voluptu- 
aries. 

And then, the broken-down adventurer reaped his 
harvest in steering the pleasure-mad Paul into the open 


184 the shield of his honor. 

1 nil-traps — club, race-track, poolroom, gambling den. 
and the lurid night life of New York ! 

It had been Paul’s first excuse that he could only 
protect Marie by a veiled tenderness, in her respectable 
hiding-place! But now, the prodigal was lance! 

He had laughed to scorn his mother’s anxiety as to 
the stolen funds ! 

“ The funds were locked up at Rovno,” he boldly 
said. “ I was at Odessa. There is no proof — and so. 
nothing to answer ! Qui s’excuse — s’accuse ! ” 

And now, Paul had sullenly fled the consequences of 
his last gambling bout, at Long Branch, where he had 
been fleeced, his -traitor companion pocketing his pri- 
vate share ! 

With a sad heart, Princess Prascovie sought the 
steamship offices to secure a passage for herself and 
Marie ! “ Two weeks more, and we would be left here 

stranded ; Paul’s life is wrecked, and — he shall not drag 
her down to the pauper burving-ground ! ” 

It was while Princess Prascovie was absent, energet- 
ically making her plans for departure, that Marie 
Wraxine slowly walked homeward to the quiet prison 
of her lonely rooms ! 

And — feeble and fluttering hearted — she carried a 
voiceless grief in her distracted heart ! 

For there was that which forbade her — the voice of 
an awakened Nature — from leaving Paul now — her last 
spar on Life’s dreary ocean ! 

And so, she never saw the lounging spy who fol- 
lowed her to the “ refined home ” of Mrs. Euphrosyne 
Daniels ! 

But, an hour later, with gleaming eyes, the Baroness 
Xenie left the Russian Consulate-General, on the Bat- 
tery, and was swiftly driven homeward ! 

She had tracked Marie Wraxine at last to her inno- 
cent hiding-place. 

“ Now ! ” she grimly laughed, “ the wolf will never 
leave her trail — till she is run to earth at last ! And, 
the story of her shame will soon drive her far away 
from this cold-hearted roysterer; for, Paul will only 
wallow in his pleasures, and never leave this whirl- 
pool ! ” 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 185 

The private agents of the Consul-General had given 
him a full report of the meteoric social rise of the 
Prince Paul Zastrow, and now, under the bidding of a 
master far away on the Neva, the callous official was 
ready to act ! 

Xenie, a thirst for vengeance in her heart, waited at 
her hotel for the falling of the blow which was to bring 
Marie Wraxine down to the level of the lowest. A fu- 
gitive wife — a fallen star — an unwedded mother soon 
to be ! 

The two women whose destiny now hung upon Paul 
Zastrow’s mad career, had dined in a brooding silence. 

Marie, with a new hopelessness in her eyes, feared to 
unbosom her soul of the secret which appalled her. 

And, the steady eyes of Prascovie Zastrow followed 
her in silent pity ! 

“ My God ! I can not tell her of Paul’s heartless- 
ness — of his unfaithfulness even to his honor as a lover ! 
When we are out at sea, I can tell her enough to warn 
her! And, to the last, I can save her from the tram- 
pling feet of the meaner crowd! But, Paul shall be 
made to play his part! Her heart must not break too 
soon ! ” 

The Princess Prascovie had, with infinite difficulty, 
conveyed a stern message to her reckless son, as he sat 
deep in a gambling game at the club, where, by a last 
ruinous sale of his own ornaments and jewels, he was 
playing for his last stake, where credit would avail him 
for a few days, if the luck should turn against him ! 

He had quickly understood his mother’s imperative 
warning, and had promised to meet her at the Hoffman 
House at eight o’clock. 

To be forced to a private interview, with Marie ab- 
sent, told him that he was in some danger of losing 
the only friend left to him on earth. 

“ I must have more money — and so — I must mpet 
her,” he growled, as he grasped his cards and plunged 
once more into the game. 

And so, when the Princess walked down Broadway 
to meet the sullen gambler, Marie was left alone, not 
daring to read her own thoughts, but intuitively feel- 
ing that the parting hour was close upon her ! 


i86 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


With a startled surprise, she bowed her head in as- 
sent when the servant clumsily announced a visitor. 
“ The gentleman must see you at once,” the attendant 
said. “ He comes from Prince Zastrow.” 

The trap had been neatly set by the crafty Xenie ! 

And then, Marie Wraxine stood tranced in wonder, 
her hands crossed upon her bosom, as a stern-faced 
man of middle age followed the servant into the room. 

She could see little behind his bushy beard and 
gleaming spectacles ; but his voice was gravely cour- 
teous, and he bowed, as the frightened woman pointed 
to a seat. 

Drawing a bulky envelope from his breast-pocket, 
the visitor said, slowly : “ I regret, Madame, to an- 

nounce myself as Dimitri Kostrominsky — His Impe- 
rial Russian Majesty’s Consul-General.” 

And now it was only a pale, tortured woman who 
listened as he placed the sealed packet in her hands. 

“ I will be very brief, Madame,” the official said. “ 1 
can not disguise from you that you have taken the 
gravest responsibility upon yourself in coming here — 
a Russian subject — under the name of Madame Olga 
Zacharoff ! Alas ! Madame, the papers which I give 
you are addressed to Madame la Generate Marie 
Wraxine ! ” 

And then the helpless woman uttered a low cry and 
pressed her hand upon her wildly beating heart. 

The very walls seemed to whirl around her ! 

“ I will do no more than my duty ! These papers are 
an official summons for you to return to Russia — to 
obey the laws and the duties of your station ; failing in 
which, I am ordered to notify you that you lose all 
rank, rights, property, and future privileges, as the wife 
of Michel Wraxine, General in the Imperial service — 
and as the sole heiress of Demetrius Kriloff and Helene 
Souvaroff! I am ready to make every arrangement 
for your instant return to Russia — in a manner suited 
to your rank ! It is the Imperial order which I com- 
municate, and a sealed copy is now at the Embassy in 
Washington. Failing in vour obedience, you will be 
publicly proclaimed in all our official stations in Amer- 


• ■ - 
• ••id! nBf. ; p 

' ' b'iTX-i 

THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. l87 

. : 5 i i : • 

ica as a fugitive without papers, and a woman traveling 
under false names.” 

Marie had started to her feet, and now, with an ap- 
pealing glance, she pointed to the door. 

“ In mercy, leave me! ” she murmured, in Russian. 

“ God help you, my poor child ! ” muttered the Con- 
sul-General, as he turned at the door to see her stand- 
ing there, with the last agony of a lost life upon her 
beautiful face. He was a father, and — had a daughter 
yet to face the world ! 

An hour later, Prascovie Zastrow led the sullen 
Paul into the apartment where the woman who had 
queened it among the Rovno roses lay helpless upon 
the couch to which she had staggered ! 

The open door had alarmed the Princess ! Spring- 
ing to Marie's side, the distracted mother cried : 
“Thank God! She still lives!” 

And then, picking up the envelope with its ominous 
blue seals, she turned upon her son ! “ Here is the 

harvest of your work ! She is discovered, and the 
Czar’s spies have run her down ! ” 

Paul Zastrow dumbly gazed at the superscription on 
the envelope, and then, muttering a frightful curse, 
hurled it across the room. 

But, Marie Wraxine, with her feeble hands shading 
her tear-stained eyes, piteously wailed : “ Take me 

away — anywhere — out of the sight of men — out of the 
open shame of this social prison! ” 

And, while the wretched women mingled their tears, 
Paul Zastrow doggedly kept his eyes on, the floor ! 
“ This is my final ruin,” he growled. “ They must 
both leave — at once ! ” 

The brutal egoist’s heart only answered to the call 
of self-interest!’ “ It will be better that both of them 
are out of the way — but, who the devil has been here! ” 

At a sign from his mother, the gambler left the 
room. 

“ Come back — in half an hour,” the Princess cried, 
with a glance at Paul which stirred even his cowardly 
heart. 

And then, on Prascovie’s bosom, the sobbing woman 
told of her relentless visitor. Prascovie watched her 


l88 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

breathlessly until, with a sigh of agony, the deserted 
orphan threw her arms around her friend’s neck and 
whispered the story of her crowning distress ! 

For, the mystery of Love had unfolded, only to bring 
to Marie Wraxine the last seal of a sinful woman’s mar- 
tyrdom ! 

“ Paul must give me his name, now,” she sobbed, 
“ for the sake of his unborn child ! ” 

It was late when Paul Zastrow dared to look upon 
the face of the pallid woman moaning there in all the 
torturing unrest of her conscience-haunted dreams. 

The reckless man was sobered, for a moment, by his 
mother’s stunning disclosure. 

For the agonized Princess Prascovie had awaited the 
spendthrift’s return before the street door, and then 
led him over to the gloom of Gramercy Park. 

Paul Zastrow dared not lie when his gallant-hearted 
mother clutched his arm. “ Tell me, if there is a spark 
of honor left in your craven heart, did you lead this 
poor woman away, or did she throw herself madly at 
you — dogged by that brute Wraxine and that painted 
devil Xenie?” 

“ It was mv own doing,” doggedly said Paul. “ I 
could not help it! I loved her from the moment I met 
her! And — I believe that I was mad that night, when 
the Swede loaned me his yacht! And now, I am tied 
hand and foot! You see that they dare not openly at- 
tack me! I know too much of Wraxine’s administra- 
tion! But, I am powerless to protect her! She will be 
now exposed to every insult here! And, you must take 
her away — at any cost — at all hazards! ” 

“ Listen,” said Prascovie Zastrow. “ You dare not 
return to the Continent : they would arrest or assassi- 
nate you ! If Wraxine were a sane man — if you could 
fight him — you might clear your honor as a soldier; 
but — the missing funds stamp you — my son — as an ac- 
cused thief ! ” 

“If the brute would only die,” growled Paul Zas- 
trow, whose blood boiled in impotent rage. “ There 
is but one way — I shall remain here — and become an 
American citizen ! Then, I can boldly return to the 
Continent — later! If Wraxine, or any of her family. 


TIIE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 189 

choose to call me out — that is all I can do — to meet 
them ! As for the funds, you must make terms with 
this Matthias Weinstock! If you can not reach Kin- 
skv, you can at least get Weinstock’s deposition that 
Kinsky himself stole the funds ! ” 

There was a brooding silence as the mother made 
her last appeal ! 

“ Will you remain here to be a beggar — a gambler — 
a living lie ! I shall sail Wednesday with this poor be- 
trayed orphan ! I will know the whole story of her 
ruin yet ! Fool as you are, you were only a catspaw of 
fate ! ” 

Paul Zastrow threw his head up in desperation. 

“ Give me a thousand dollars, and I will leave the 
Atlantic coast. There is the West — there is Califor- 
nia ! ” 

“ I have only money enough to take Marie and my- 
self over to Dresden,” pleaded the Princess. 

“ You have your jewels,” muttered the craven, as he 
bowed his head in shame. “ Come with me ! ” fiercely 
cried Prascovie. And the spendthrift shuddered as he 
saw her stern face in the glimmering light on the stair- 
way. 

It was only when the mother laid her cool hand on 
Marie Wraxine’s brow that the suffering woman 
opened her tired eyes. 

“ Paul ? ” she gasped. 

“ Yes ! Paul ! ” solemnly said the Princess, her form 
stretched to its imposing height. 

“ He leaves here to-morrow night— and — we sail for 
Havre the next day! I will never leave you, Marie, 
while I have life or a crust ! ” 

Paul was awed as his mother grasped his wrist ! 

“ Kneel down here ! ” she commanded ! 

And the ruined gambler dropped as if he were shot ! 

“ Swear to me that you will marry this woman the 
very moment that she is free— as soon as the mercy of 
God relieves her from her husband by death ! ” 

“ Why? ” faltered tfie' spendthrift. 

“ To give your name to her unborn, fatherless 
child ! ” said the Princess, folding the pallid girl in her 
loving arms. 


190 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


And then, in a storm of self-reproach, Paul Zastrow 
swore before high Heaven to do his mother’s bidding! 

“ Come back and say farewell to her, to-morrow. 
Keep faith with her to the last! ” said Prascovie, as she 
hurried Paul to the door. 

“ I will get the money which you need — you shall 
have more from Dresden ! And, you are to leave first ! 
If you do not go West to-morrow night, you will lose 
your last chance on earth to remain my son ! ” 

And then, as Prince Zastrow hurried away, goaded 
on by the last sight of the fainting sufferer, Princess 
Prascovie sadly went back to her silent vigil of love. 

Next day, the old Wall Street banker sighed as he 
dropped Princess Prascovie’s magnificent diamond 
cross — an Emperor’s gift — into the drawer of his pri- 
vate safe. 

“ Pardon me/’ he muttered, “ this two thousand dol- 
lars does not go to your son — does it? For, Madame, 
there is not money enough in New York City for that 
wild young man’s follies ! And, the set he goes with 
would beggar a Rothschild — if they had their own 
way ! ” 

He read the truth in the Princess’s hopeless eyes ! 
It was a mother’s last sacrifice of love. 

“ One thousand takes him West, the other takes me 
homeward,” she frankly answered. “ He leaves to- 
night, to begin a new life — beyond the Mississippi ! ” 

“ God grant it ! ” cried the old financier. “ You can 
command me in anything ! ” 

Through her tears, Prascovie Zastrow only asked 
one simple Christian boon ! 

“ If I write you about him, tell me the whole truth! ” 
she said, as she wrote down her private address. 

The old man bowed his head, in a solemn promise — 
and, when he raised it, the gallant woman was gone ! 
“God go with you!” muttered the man of dollars. 
“ Brave motherly heart! ” 

That night, at seven, Princess Prascovie parted with 
her son in the hurry of the great depot at Forty-second 
Street. 

Paul Zastrow was haunted by the vision of a white, 
despairing face as his mother whispered her last words. 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


91 


“As you deal with her, may God deal with you! 
Your honor is her only shield now! You owed your 
life to me. Swear to me, now, that you will give your 
unborn child a name ! ” 

And Zastrow. in an agony of remorse, kissed his 
mother’s trembling hands and swore his solemn oath; 
then he sprang into the train — for this parting had at 
least showed him his own coward self — naked and 
ashamed, vile before God and man. 

The next night, on the steamer, Prascovie Zastrow 
sat with the silent Marie and sadly watched the shores 
of the alien land recede, and drop down into the cold, 
gray sea-line ! 

And, looking forward to the east, she could only see 
there the gathering clouds of sorrow and despair; for 
the inexorable Fates had decreed that the paying of 
the price should begin ! 


BOOK III. 

The Wages of Sin. 


CHAPTER XI. 

ALONE IN DRESDEN. 

The fast-receding snow was only faintly streaking 
the shaded gullies around Berlin, when the Princess 
Zastrow descended from a closed carriage, at the bank 
and exchange office of Meyer, Unterwalder & Co. 

The chill winds of a late spring howled down the 
Unter den Linden. 

And the sturdy Berlin burghers were still wrapped in 
their winter furs as they bewailed an Easter without 
blossoms. 

The busy clerks of the money mart failed not to no- 
tice the commanding air of distinction of the tall, veiled 
stranger who asked an interview with Herr Matthias 
Weinstock, the new Manager. 

“ If the Excellence will only send in her name ! ” 
said a dapper, budding financier, springing eagerly to 
the side of the Princess Prascovie. 

With a quick decision, the visitor traced a name on 
a scrap of paper. 

“ One of those crazy Russian princesses,” muttered 
young Moller, vainly trying to decipher the Musco- 
vite characters. 

But, he was surprised at the air of sudden excitement 
with which the now mighty manager sprang up, and 
received his visitor at the door. 

“ Come back for a letter of instructions, in five min- 
utes,” he whispered ; and the astute Moller then knew 
the import of the manager’s wink. 

There was an air of financial solidity in the rene- 
gade lawyer’s new private office ; an air of efflorescent 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


193 


prosperity in his soberly rich dress, which told the 
watchful Princess Prascovie of the crafty Weinstock’s 
substantial promotion. 

“ Autres temps — autres moeurs ” — mused the noble 
woman, as the patronizing tone of Weinstock’s dis- 
course smote harshly upon her ear. 

“ You are not looking well, Princess,” frankly said 
Weinstock, gazing at her with an inward satisfaction. 

“ Thanks for your discernment, Sir,” frostily re- 
marked Madame Zastrow. “ It has been a hard win- 
ter.” 

“ And so, you are returning to Russia from your 
American trip?” briskly demanded Weinstock. But 
he regretted the slip of his tongue. 

His Hebrew curiosity had led him on in advance of 
the text. 

“ I am returning from England, and passing through 
Berlin,” coldly remarked the Princess. “ But, I de- 
sired to see you with regard to this fugitive thief, Casi- 
mir Kinsky — the man of whom you spoke to me last 
year ! ” 

Weinstock started,, and rang his bell. “ Excuse me, 
my dear Madame,” he said ; “ the demands of our large 
business are always unceasing ! ” And then, he handed 
a hasty scrawl to the young man who had ushered in 
his unexpected visitor. 

It took but five minutes of conversational fencing for 
Matthias Weinstock to find out that he had met his 
match in craft. 

“ Perhaps, as you are so busy,” simply said Madame 
Zastrow, “ you can meet me at the Hotel Savoy, this 
evening at seven, and dine with me. We can then talk 
over the whole affair.” 

Wreathed in smiles, the alert Manager bowed Mad- 
ame Zastrow to his door, after eagerly accepting her 
invitation. 

It was only a quarter of an hour after she had de- 
parted that he gave vent to a growl of dissatisfaction, 
as young Moller reported : “ The lady had dismissed 

her carriage on entering. She walked rapidly to the 
Passage, and there disappeared — for there are a hun- 
dred ways to dodge out of that ! ” 


194 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

“Never mind!” cheerfully ruminated the Hebrew, 
“ to-night, she will not escape me! ” 

There was no air of concealment in the manner of 
the head porter of the Hotel Savoy that evening, when 
he dispatched Herr Matthias Weinstock, in charge of a 
faultless Oberkellner, into one of the pretty private 
dining-rooms of the open hotel court. 

And, after dining, the Princess Zastrow, with an un- 
failing courtesy, discussed the later news of St. Peters- 
burg with her wary guest ! 

Before the hostess had lighted her cigarette, she had 
learned of the wonderful success at Court of Madame 
la Baronne Xenie Karovitch ; and also, of the contin- 
ued imbecility of the unfortunate General Wraxine. 

There were many preliminary topics discussed be- 
fore the Princess Zastrow «at. last frankly approached 
the topic of the fugitive Kinsky. 

And, after all, the plausible and graceful denials of 
Matthais Weinstock availed nothing. His crafty face 
was slightly flushed as he said : “ You have been some 
time absent from Europe, Excellence. You may not 
know that Casimir Kinsky has been pardoned by the 
Czar for his flight, leaving Russia without a passport, 
and has returned to Poland, where he has purchased an 
estate.” 

“ And, upon what grounds ? ” cried Prascovie Zas- 
trow, her eyes blazing. “ It is infamous ; the Empe- 
ror shall know the whole story from me ! ” 

“ Upon the grounds, Madame, that as confidential 
valet and maitre d’hotel of the demented General 
Wraxine, he has been able to clear up many matters 
of vital importance to the Government. The Grand 
Duke Anatole, as Inspector-General, received many 
valuable papers from Kinsky which, it appears, were 
preserved to the Government by his prudently crossing 
the frontier ! A ring of unscrupulous scoundrels sur- 
rounded General Wraxine, who has been pardoned all 
his own misdeeds on consideration of his splendid past 
services and his failing intellect.” 

The Princess Zastrow sprang to her feet and paced 
the room like a caged tigress. 

“ Since you are so well informed, Sir,” she sharply 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 1 95 

cried, “ as you were once the family lawyer, do you 
know of the fate of Marie Kriloff’s inheritance? — for I 
will call her Marie Wraxine no longer ! ” 

“Alas!” sighed the astute Weinstock. “You 
know the fury of the Emperor as to the family rela- 
tion ! Excellence Madame la Generate Marie Wraxine 
has been publicly declared a ‘ forfeited heir ’ as to the 
property left in St. Petersburg, and has lost all her 
rights in the Maison Kriloff! And her citizenship is 
also declared annulled; her passport has been vacated — 
‘ for contumacy in refusing to return to Russia upon the 
legal demand of the Russian Consul-General in New 
York City. But, of what use to fence further! You 
were there — and the St. Petersburg papers published 
the whole report ! I can get you a copy ! ” 

Prascovie Zastrow trembled like a leaf in the storm. 
“ And, to whom did the spoils go? ” she fiercely 
cried. 

“ Ah ! The law forced Madame Karovitch to accept 
the inheritance ! ” suavely replied the promoted broker. 

Princess Zastrow paused in front of Weinstock, and 
gave him a glance which made him quail. 

“ And now, as to my son! Falsely accused of steal- 
ing the funds of the military chest? ” 

For the first time, the burly Jew showed the vulgarity 
of his nature. “ Casimir Kinsky is now an Excellence 
— he has bought out an old fief ! He has filed his writ- 
ten deposition that your son stole all the confidential 
funds of the military chest, and that he only protected a 
few thousands of roubles of the General’s funds, which 
he has returned with the papers ! ” 

The Princess seized him by both hands. “ You can 
swear that he confessed the theft to you — that you 
changed the money! Your deposition will save my 
son’s honor! He can, then, return to Russia! ” 

But, Matthias Weinstock shook her off boldly! 

“ Of what avail would my oath be ! To a man who 
is a deserter, under hue and cry — a man who dare not 
return to Russia for fear of being flogged to death by 
the regimental ‘ drummers ’ ! No ! Not if you gave 
me a hundred thousand roubles ! Kinsky seems to 
have many friends in high place ! He may have only 


196 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

followed your fugitive son to trace out the hiding-place 
of the light-minded thing whom he stole away from 
General Wraxine! For the whole world knows that 
the Grand Duke enjoyed her ! The shame has broken 
poor old General Wraxine’s heart — and — neither your 
son nor the wanton can ever return to Russia 1 ” 

The Princess stepped back slowly, as the burly brute, 
gaining strength from his own unrebuked insults, now 
found words to express his lurking triumph. 

A light broke in upon her brain ! 

She opened the door, and raised a wasted hand. Her 
lips moved in one final curse — the awful condemnation 
of a soul to deepest hell ! “ Go — mouchard ! ” she 

cried. “ I know you now ! Judas ! ” 

When Prascovie Zastrow raised her head, she was 
alone. 

“Poor Marie! ” she muttered, through her falling 
tears. 

“ Left alone — friendless, poor, and with neither name 
nor honor ! God help the helpless one — and her help- 
less little babe ! ” 

The sudden call to action came. Touching the sil- 
ver bell, she called the Head Porter: “ I must see 
your master at once. Take me to him ! ' f 

Even in her agony of grief, the Princess had sudden- 
ly recalled the fact that many years ago her dead hus- 
band had made the fortune of the now wealthy pro- 
prietor when he was a stranger on the Neva, left 
stranded by the death of the Prussian Ambassador 
whose household the young man managed. 

And now, the bread cast upon the waters returned. 

The cautious Berliner led the agitated woman to his 
own splendid apartment. 

“ It is a short story, Excellence, but, one that I must 
whisper to you ! This Weinstock — in a year — from a 
mere agent de change, has leaped up to be second 
partner in a solid private bank ! That he is the princi- 
pal local agent of the Russian secret police ; that he 
conducts the confidential secret affairs of the Russian 
Imperial Bank ; that he is all-powerful in their hidden 
villainy — all this is true. And — you now know the 
reason of his sudden rise in sober money circles ! I 


THE SHIELD OF H IS HONOR. IO7 

Iiave to know the truth! Great personages come here 
— and — Weinstock is their slimy shadow, their danger- 
ous tool ; and a fellow named Kinsky, a bogus Polish 
nobleman, is their border agent, and often comes here 
to confer with Weinstock ! 

“ And so, this low brute is spy, stool pigeon, and 
secret agent ! ” 

In an hour, the Princess Zastrow had vanished from 
the Hotel Savoy, and even Weinstock’s spies were baf- 
fled. 

For, no carriage but that of the proprietor had left 
the court. 

While the baffled Weinstock was berating his subor- 
dinates, the Princess, muffled up beyond possible rec- 
ognition, had caught the train for Hanover. And the 
loyal old hotel-keeper, then, whispered : “ Change at 
Stendal ; you can so reach Dresden easily, then going 
bv Magdeburg ! Command me here^ — in life and 
death ! ” 

Matthias Weinstock cursed his unlucky star as he, 
at last, gave up the search over all Berlin. 

“ If I could only have found out her real abode ! I 
might then have traced out the secret of Marie KrilofFs 
"hiding-place! For that, the Grand Duke would have 
paid me with ready gold — and an aristocratic golden 
order. But ,the old she-fox has been too sly! She 
feared me from the first ! ” 

It was a night of agony and alarm for the widowed 
Princess — this enforced detour by Stendal and Magde- 
burg, to reach Dresden. 

At last, she realized the full extent of Marie Wrax- 
ine’s downfall and the world-wide degradation of her 
son. 

Her own flight from Berlin had been most skillfully 
managed, and but too well she knew that she dared not 
re-enter Russia while her enemies were in power, nor 
be openly seen in Berlin. 

Spirited and high souled, Prascovie Zastrow never 
dreamed of the mighty money cabal of the Neckers, 
supplemented secretly by the crafty Kalomine — now 
reaping all the golden perquisites of the huge construc- 
tions at Rovno. 


198 THE SHIELD OF HTS HONOR. 

To sustain poor, old, imbecile Wraxine’s blasted rep- 
utation, his illness had been a most fortuitous happen- 
ing. 

And the whole corrupt circle had craftily shunted all 
the confusion and disaster of the Rovno Corps upon 
the fatherless aid-de-camp who had stolen his Gener- 
al’s wife — his private accounts — the vast sums held 
personally by Wraxine and now successfully defied ex- 
tradition in the United States — the refuge of every un- 
punished scoundrel ! 

In the years of her diplomatic residence in London 
Prascovie Zastrow had learned every dark secret of the 
Russian police system, and she knew well the weight 
of the Czar’s arm ! 

But one thought now animated her ! To provide for 
the safety of the woman who, alone in Dresden, was 
the guardian of the helpless babe, at once a miracle 
of Love and a badge of shame ! 

The last sneer of Weinstock — now the unveiled 
“ mouchard ” — told her of Marie’s danger ! “ The 

Grand Duke never enjoyed her!” proudly cried the 
motherly woman. “ He drove her mad with his secret 
pursuit, and, in a moment of desperation, she listened 
to Paul’s insane pleadings — the voice of his mad love, 
born of ungratified passion and self-adulation. 

“ Myself ! Safe only in Switzerland,” mused the un- 
daunted Princess. “ And I must soon say farewell to 
Marie and the helpless baby Paul, who fills her days 
and nights with a sweet anguish ! But, if I am rec- 
ognized at Dresden — if 1 am followed — then, this poor 
girl will be soon ‘ marked down,’ and — my God ! — she 
might even disappear! There is now the need of a 
friend — a true friend! Where shall I find him? ” 

And the devoted woman prayed to her God to raise 
up that true friend to the husbandless and fatherless 
woman who now meekly bowed under her innocent 
cross — the sweet babe born in the shadow of sin and 
sorrow ! 

With a pang which rent her heart, Prascovie shud- 
dered to recall her son’s silence! He had never even 
answered the letter which told him of the sacred bond 
now tying him to Marie Kriloff for eternity — the union 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. I99 

of heart, soul, and body in the mystery of creation — the 
fatherhood of a man to be — the last pledge of the inner 
souls of two passionate mortals ! 

But the Princess had read of certain festivities of 
the “ Golden Horde ” by the far Pacific — of “ various 
notable happenings,” in which the name of “ the gal- 
lant and accomplished Prince Paul Zastrow, of the 
Imperial Guard,” flourished in the gilded annals of 
“ High Life.” 

“ His oath — his oath ! ” — there was the last flimsy 
barrier between Paul Zastr ow and the. Seventh Hell of 
Dante’s Inferno. 

It was in the bright, fresh glow of the early morning 
that the Magdeburg train stopped in an enchanted val- 
ley in the environs of Dresden, and the guard, with 
muttered apologies, showed an elderly passenger into 
the first-class compartment which the Princess Prasco- 
vie had bought as a “ reserve ” for a few marks “ trink 
geld.” 

They were half way to Dresden when the Princess, 
turning from her corner at a sudden shriek of the 
whistle, saw a face which called back her happiest 
years ! “ It is the Princess Zastrow,” cried Father An- 

astasius Petroffsky, throwing back a great, gray ca- 
pote, to show the black robe, long hair, sweeping 
beard, and jeweled pectoral cross of the Russian priest. 

“ Time has changed me sadly ! ” murmured the 
stately lady, studying the matured face of the once 
young man whom she had left an assistant priest — a 
rosy neophyte — at the Russian Embassy in London. 

“We both have known sorrows, gracious Protect- 
ress,” murmured the man of forty, whose pallid face 
told of the midnight oil. 

“Whither journey, you? ”, cried Princess Prascovie, 
with a sudden impulse. 

“ I am the resident priest of the Russian chapel in 
Dresden,” said Anastasius, “ and — I lay my life at your 
feet. Can I serve you ? ” 

The train was already rolling into the Berliner 
Bahnhof, when the Princess seized his hands. 

“ I am alone in the world! My gallant husband is 
dead ! I have no son now! You have heard? ” 


200 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


The bearded priest bowed his head in a sad silence. 

‘ Take me to your home — I wish to make my con- 
fession ! ” 

With a quick motion, she swathed her face in im- 
penetrable veils, and they swiftly threaded the crowd 
on the platform to where the line of carriages waited 
in the Altstadt. Here was an humble friend, raised 
up by the providence of God to aid her — one whom 
even the Czar dared not strike down. For the Russian 
priest is sacred! 

Two hours later, Father Petroffsky, in his full robes, 
awaited an arrival at the door of the baptistry of the 
chapel adjoining his sheltered home. 

It was his good wife who aided a slender, graceful 
woman to alight from a closed carriage. 

When the shrouding cloak was thrown aside, Marie 
Wraxine stood, with tear-filled eyes, her loving arms 
clutching to her breast the last frail spar to which she 
clung on the ocean of Life ! 

An infinite yearning love and tenderness filled Pras- 
covie Zastrow’s eyes as she took the helpless infant in 
her arms. 

The rich, full voice of the priest rang out in the sol- 
emn chants of the Greek Orthodox Church ! “ The 

name,” he murmured. 

“ Paul Michaelovitch,” answered the Princess Zas- 
trow, as a convulsive shudder ran through Marie 
Wraxine’s frame. 

“ There is no godfather,” whispered the priest’s 
simple-minded wife. 

“ God is the father of us all ! ” solemnly said An- 
astasius Petroffsky, as he took the babe in his arms. 

“ I shall inscribe my own name, if I may have the 
honor.” 

With a straining heart, the fugitive wife watched the 
maimed baptismal rites of the patrician -born infant, 
and then tottered away to the welcome shelter of the 
good priest’s humble home. 

And, while Kazia Petroffsky laid the helpless little 
waif upon her motherly bosom, Prascovie Zastrow told 
Marie of the coming parting which was even now 
weighing upon her heavy heart ! 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


?OI 


“ It is God’s will, my dear child, that we should part 
— for your sake — for the sake of the dear babe — that I 
may protect you ! I go from here to Zurich, and shall 
take shelter at Geneva, in the shadow of God’s unde- 
filed Alps — Liberty’s last unprofaned asylum in the 
eastern world ! Father Petroffsky is godfather, with 
me as godmother, to little Paul. I shall send him. my 
letters — my remittances — for you ! He knows all now, 
for I have made my full confession ! Do you the same, 
my poor heart-wrung child ; and the same God who 
will guard me on my lonely way, will defend you and 
your babe ! Petroffsky knows little Paul’s one heri- 
tage — my son’s oath ! And, now, give me a half an 
hour with him alone. Father Anastasius will take me to 
the station. He will shelter you here, after you can safe- 
ly leave the Klinik, until I can have him bring you over 
to the Swiss border! For I have a long journey to 
take ; but one other faithful friend is left to me, besides 
this man of God ! For, I dare not write to Russia now, 
or go there, or abandon you ! But, I can send one who 
will save for me the wreck of my fortune. Then, dear- 
est heart, you shall come to me in free Switzerland ! ” 

With a convulsive energy, Marie Kriloff clung to 
the stout-hearted Princess, until Father Anastasius 
broke in upon their loving farewell. 

“ It is the only way, my poor child,” he whispered, 
making a sign to the Princess Prascovie that the car- 
riage was at the door. 

“ Here in my household you are safe from all intru- 
sion ; we have the royal Saxon privileges for the chapel 
and my residence. Kazia is but a poor priest’s wife, 
and vet a tower of strength to you ; for she is a mother 
and bears a true Russian heart — warm, loving, and ten- 
der. All that you have to tell me, you can* tell under 
the seal of confession, and then — not even the Czar can 
share the secret of your sorrows ; as for your safety — 
there is no foot which dares to cross my humble 
threshold ! ” 

“ And you will tell her, later, why I must go, Father 
Anastasius, that she may have peace?” sobbed the 
Princess, as she stole out to take a last farewell of the 
innocent child, now smiling up at Kazia Petroffsky. 


202 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

' 

“ May God deal with him — my only son — as he deals 
with you ! ” sighed the steadfast woman, as she whis- 
pered a few words in the good housewife’s ear. 

“ Marie is a child — the child of sorrows — a helpless 
victim of a code that kills — the inhumanity of man to 
helpless womanhood ! And so, be kind to her when 
I am away! I will never forget you — and God will 
bless you ! ” 

“ Barina,” murmured Kazia, “ Anastasius has told 
me of all your golden kindness to him, in the days of 
his friendless youth ! We will return it here — to this 
helpless one — God’s own innocent ! Poor babe ! ” 

“ It will be two weeks before you hear from me, dar- 
ling,” murmured the Princess. “ I shall be watched, 
even in Geneva ; and they must never know your hid- 
ing-place. Father Anastasius will send all the letters 
on to Paris, and mine will be forwarded, by one faith- 
ful friend there.” 

When the carriage started, Marie, standing at the 
window with her babe on her breast, could only see 
the veiled form of her brave defender ; but Prascovie 
Zastrow’s eyes filled with bitter tears to see the help- 
less, white-faced woman there alone, with the helpless 
child clasped to her breast. The Queen of Pearls no 
longer — the Queen of Sorrows now, wrecked, aban- 
doned, poor — and alone ! 

It was late at night before the priest returned, for he 
had gone down the railway a few stations on the road 
toward Prague; and he breathed freer when the de- 
voted woman was safely over the Austrian line. 

He knew now all the nobility of Prascovie Zastrow’s 
loyal soul. 

And wh,en, in the shadows of the Sachsen-Schwyz, 
they parted, he felt how noble was the atonement of the 
hopeless mother for a coming sorrow. 

“ I see no hope,” murmured Father Anastasius. 
“ The General may live on for years, as a mental 
wreck; but, there is no divorce possible, and, as the 
child is born in wedlock, the law presumes it to be his 
own ! Should the General at any time recover, he can 
take the child away from her.” 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 203 

“ And that, alone, would kill her,” sadly faltered 
Princess Prascovie. 

“ Your son is young, heedless, a man of the world. 
He may forget — he may even marry ! ” slowly said the 
priest, taking her hands. 

“ Spare me — spare me ! ” cried the Princess. 
“ Should that occur, for God’s sake let her live on in 
ignorance ! For that would be her death doom ! ” 

“ He writes ? ” said the good man. 

“ Alas, no ! Only to me — for money ! ” faltered 
Princess Prascovie, her tears blinding her. “ I feared 
some fatal imprudence! He does not even know where 
she is now! ” 

“ I shall send you a certified copy of the baptismal 
certificate of the child ! It is my duty ! ” gravely said 
Petroffsky. “ And you can then send it on to him ! 
Should General Wraxine die, your son owes it to high 
Heaven to make this one atonement ! He can then 
adopt and legalize the child, whether he marries the 
mother or not.” 

When the two parted, Father Petroffsky kissed the 
generous hand which had given him, for the support of 
Marie, the last thousand-rouble bill left of her hard- 
won remittances. 

“ I shall soon place a sum with you to protect her 
and the infant — all that I can raise, as soon as I can 
communicate safely with my agents in Russia; and I 
only ask that you and your wife will send me a joint 
receipt for that sum, to be used for the maintenance of 
Marie and her child ! She will then know that it is in 
your hands ! ” 

When the priest blessed his innocent, kneeling pen- 
itent, Prascovie Zastrow smiled sadly her farewell. 

“ May God guard and bless you,” she simply said. 
“ I feel strange forebodings — I have suffered with the 
heart for long years ! I am not as strong as I was, and 
if you should ever hear aught of a sudden seizure, let 
me then have your thoughts and your prayers ! I will 
leave all my papers in a safe place, to be delivered to 
you — for her — and for the child ! ” 

They had not dared to ask each other what should 
be done if Prince Paul Zastrow should come to the 


204 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

Elbe to claim the woman whom he had dragged down 
from her high estate. 

The good priest shook his head sadly as he wan- 
dered up the sloping hillsides of the Altstadt. 

“ He will never come — the young Prince ! No ! He 
will never turn his head backward to see the wreck he 
leaves behind ! It is the martyrdom of a noble heart ! 
God help this wretched mother ! ” 

And now, began the long labor of Love which dig- 
nified the modest home of the Russian priest. 

For, as the long summer days drifted on, there was 
always the one answer, “ Nothing ! ” to the inquiring 
eyes of the pale-faced Marie, who watched little Paul 
growing to be a sturdy and rosy infant. 

One care only was spared to the priest and his wife. 
The second story of their home had been given up- to 
Madame Marie, her child, and a rosy-faced Saxon girl, 
who adored her pale and silent mistress. 

There was no intrusion either of spy or gossip, and 
the peaceful days of their silent visitor were passed in 
reading, writing, or else devoted to the child. 

On the midnight hours of the soft summer nights, 
Father Petroffsky or the good Kazia went abroad with 
the silent mother, whose pale face only flushed with 
delight in driving through the beautiful, deserted gar- 
dens. 

Regularly, each week, came the pacquet of letters 
from Paris, forwarded safely from Geneva, but the 
priest’s heart told him that the letters for which she 
craved were not as yet forthcoming. 

It had been but a month after Princess Prascovie’s 
departure when the sum of five thousand roubles was 
remitted from Paris, to be used as a fund for the main- 
tenance of the helpless pair. 

And Father Anastasius knew of the health and well- 
being of the Princess Prascovie at Geneva. 

There was a strict injunction to carefully oversee all 
the Russian newspapers which duly arrived at the 
Russian chapel, and, especially, to destroy all those 
painting the glories of the marriage of the Baroness 
Xenie Karovitch with the Chevalier Alexandre Kalo- 
mine, Director-General of the Imperial Bank ! 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


205 


With a sigh. Father Anastasius read all these histo- 
ries of this social splendor, and shuddered to think of 
the future fate of his silent charge. 

“ Everything lost to her — name, rank, friends ; her 
property forfeit, her child fatherless — her future one 
long-drawn agony. God help her! She is now paying 
the price! ” mused the priest. 

He knew too w’ell the unanswered question of her 
eyes — the longing to hear from the brilliant social ref- 
ugee in America. 

Too well, from her monthly confession, did the priest 
know all the brooding sorrows of that patient heart ; 
and he sorrowed in silence, to know that even the de- 
voted mother at Geneva knew not where Paul Zas- 
trow’s reckless feet had led him on. 

It was by a sudden fancy of his own that Anastasius 
Petroffsky wrote to a seminary friend whose name he 
saw as an official incumbent of the Russian chapel at 
San Francisco, Cal. 

And his ingenuity was at last but too sadly re- 
warded ! 

For, after some weeks he knew the whole story of 
Zastrow’s meteoric career. 

Wild dissipations in eastern cities, a desperate duel 
on the Mississippi, a social intrigue of wide notoriety, 
and then a career of frenzied speculation on the west- 
ern mining bourses. 

There was a bundle of newspaper articles, all glow- 
ing with lurid details of the mad Prince Zastrow’s con- 
scienceless exploits ! 

With jealous care, the good ecclesiastic hid these far 
away from possible sight of anyone, not even daring to 
hint of their existence to the Princess in his regular 
weekly letters. 

“ No ! He never will come ! ” sadly sighed the priest. 
'“There is no hope that he will ever give a second 
thought to the woman whose child is now a helpless 
hostage of God’s infinite goodness ! ” 

It was in the late fall, and the linden trees of Losch- 
witz were bare once more, the long line of barges goin^ 
home up the winding river for the winter, when the 


206 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


peace of the little rectory was disturbed by^ a sudden 
summons of the priest to Geneva. 

Anastasius Petroffsky gazed long and sadly in Marie 
Wraxine’s hopeless eyes, as he watched little Paul be- 
ginning to totter around manfully on his chubby feet. 

“ I can tell you nothing, my dear, child,” he said — 
“ only — that I will hide nothing from you — on my re- 
turn ! Here are the lines — ‘ Come to me at once.’ And 
1 have promised the Princess that I would always come 
at her summons ! ” 

It exhausted all Father Petroffsky’s moral authority 
to restrain his excited guest. 

“ We are in God’s hands, my dear child,” he firmly 
said. “ If you are needed, you shall be telegraphed 
for, at once, and Franz — my man — will bring you on 
safely. I will answer for him with my life ! ” 

It was Kazia Petroffsky’s one act of self-assertion of 
the year, to take her husband aside before his de- 
parture. 

“ You must tell her the whole truth,” the good 
wife said. “ Hold nothing back ; for I can hear her 
light foot pacing her room nightly, long after you have 
slept ! She is dying by inches ! My God, have mercy 
on the man who so daringly tempts His Providence.” 

Three days later, the priest sat by the Princess Pras- 
covie Zastrow’s bedside, in her quiet retreat in the 
environs of Geneva. 

He started, to see the inroads of care and sorrow 
upon that noble face. 

And soon he knew all the burdens of her new misery. 

Father Anastasius had telegraphed a few words of 
cheer to his wife before he finished reading the fetters 
which Princess Prascovie had placed in his hands. 

They were all dated from a western American city, 
and Paul Zastrow’s last demands for a considerable 
sum of money were coupled with threats which showed 
all the baseness of his cruel heart. 

“ I dared not write or send these on to you, my good 
friend,” said the hollow-eyed Princess ; “ but you are 
the one loyal heart left to me now ! To raise this sum 
of money without the sale of my last property in Rus- 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 207 

sia would he impossible ; to try to borrow further there 
is futile, and I can not return to Russia without per- 
haps being detained to answer to the law for harboring 
General Wraxine’s fugitive wife. He seems to be 
championed by those who are handling the huge spoils 
of the Rovno camp ; and poor Marie’s property was all 
duly forfeited and turned over! To leave this mad 
boy without this money is to tempt his final despera- 
tion, and, at last, the Baroness Xenie Kalomine has 
thrown off the mask ! It is she who has married this 
great financier — the Bank Director — and he now holds 
the principal claims upon my landed property! I can 
not — I dare not — face the consequences of Paul break- 
ing his oath to me, for Marie’s sake! Poor child! Let 
her live on, if she can, under the delusion that he still 
loves her — that he may some day repair his wrong! 
But, to me, this reproach — the last — that I will drive 
him to the sale of his honor by denying him this money, 
it is the bitterness of death ! ” 

“And what is to be done?” demanded the priest. 

“ But, one last loophole of escape is open to me! ” 
murmured the Princess. “ I know our Ambassador in 
Paris — a good and gallant man, the friend of happier 
davs ! I shall leave here and go to him ! I can tell 
him all. under the seal of his honor, even where Paul’s 
child is, where Marie is sheltered, and of all your noble 
fidelity! With his aid — sheltered bv him — I may be 
able to sacrifice my remaining property — the huge su- 
gar mills of Kief, upon which Kalomine even now has 
some considerable encumbrances ! And, failing in that, 
we must look to God alone, for help! I have called you 
here to place all my papers and family documents in 
your possession ! I need your aid — your counsel — 
your promise that Marie Wraxine shall not know of 
this meditated baseness; for, I fear to trust myself alone 
in Paris. There is the secret police. The circle who 
have vowed Marie’s ultimate rirn are powerful ; and 
now I must only risk myself! But, whatever happens, 
she must not know! And swear to me that you will 
keep it from her — should any harm befall — until the 
last! 1 burn my ships when T go to Paris! It is my 
last effort 1 ” 


208 the shield of his honor. 

For two days, the kindly priest busied himself with 
every preparation, and then, received the control of the 
archives and personal effects of the noble pilgrim of 
Love. 

The stars shone down on them when they said fare- 
well, as the clanging bells told of the departure of the 
Paris train. “ I have tried to shield the innocent — to 
repair the wrong done by my son — to be a mother to 
this motherless girl who was betrayed into this heart- 
less marriage and then — hounded into shame ! Prom- 
ise me that you will remember this as long as you look 
upon the face of little Paul ! ” 

“ A martyr of Love ! ” murmured Father Anastasius r 
as he walked alone by the rushing Rhone. 

He remained for a day to securely deposit the papers 
and valuable archives in a bank, and to cover the sud- 
den disappearance of the stately stranger at whose se- 
cluded life the frankly curious Swiss had wondered. 

But, guarding the secrets of her social sorrows, the 
old priest hastened back to Dresden. 

And all the innocent dissimulation of his honest 
heart — all the authority he possessed over his wife — 
was needed to comfort the lonely watcher there in the 
Altstadt. 

For Marie Wraxine, too fondly true to the man who 
had wrecked her life, only murmured : “ Tell me that 

Paul is not dead — only tell me that ! ” 

And then, she fell senseless in his arms, with the 
happy release of her unspeakable joy. 

It was two weeks later when Anastasius Petroffsky 
fell on his knees in a transport of joy on reading the 
long-expected letter of the Princess Prascovie. 

“ Count Mohrendorf has acted as a man of honor, 
a true friend, and my old and tried confidant. He has 
taken over, upon himself, the future sale of the estate, 
and has advanced me forty thousand francs in gold. 
Twenty thousand have been cabled to Paul, so that I 
can now send you a deposit of fifteen thousand francs 
to provide for Marie and little Paul. And, the Am- 
bassador has also undertaken to endeavor to unveil 
the infamy of the spy Kinsky in fastening the crime of 
theft upon my son ! Then, if Paul should be pardoned 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 209 

for his mad passion, the death of General Wraxine 
would leave my son free to give to Marie his name in 
marriage, cleared of all past shame. I shall remain 
here, secretly, protected by the Ambassador; and the 
funds have been sent from Geneva ! No one is to know 
of my presence here — not even Paul — lest the secret 
service agents try to counteract my efforts. Secrecy 
is all we need for a few months now ! I write all from 
Geneva; and I only go out at night, under a secret es- 
cort from the Embassy.” 

“ Light at last ! ” cried Father Anastasius. “ And 
now, Prince Paul can keep his oath ! ” 


CHAPTER XII. 

HIS GOLDEN FORTUNE AN AMERICAN QUEEN. 

The chilly November winds were whistling over the 
bleak hills around Paris, and lamps were already being 
lighted in the cozy shadows of bourgeois homes. 

There was the blue-white gleam of the electric light, 
sparkling out in cafe and hall, and the nervous Gaul 
shivered in his pardessus as the unwieldly “ busses ” 
toiled over the asphalt. 

The dreary day of early winter was dying in cold, 
gray skies. 

In this waning afternoon the Count Mohrendorf sat 
alone in his study at the Ambassade de Russie. The 
sound of retreating footsteps was heard as the glad- 
some clerks began to escape from the Consulate Gen- 
eral. 

And then, a brooding silence began to reign in the 
daily Crowded corridors of No. 79 Rue de Grenelle. 
For the Embassy and Consulate General were both in 
the same stately pile — the property of the Czar. 

“ What is it, Baptiste? ” wearily demanded the tired 
representative of the Czar, as his one trusted body serv- 
ant opened the private door from the Ambassador’s 
personal sanctum. 

“• It is the veiled lady again, Madame Mertens, Sir,” 


210 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


whispered the one attache of the household, who was 
not a secret Russian spy. 

“ Show her in, and say that I will join her, as usual! 
Not here, remember: never here!” 

The grave-faced servitor withdrew noiselessly. 

“ Faithful fellow,” mused Count Mohrendorf, as he 
hastily thrust some newspaper cuttings into his pri- 
vate drawer. 

The great Ambassador might have qualified his ad- 
miration for Baptiste, had he known that the man who 
had resisted all the seductions of Mohrendorf’s secret 
enemies, was really paid the salary of a General of 
Division for selling all his private Observations, direct 
to the French foreign office. 

“ But, how can I tell her? How dare I tell her? ” 
sighed the functionary, pacing the long room in an 
agony of indecision. 

“ If I could only get her to return to Geneva, it 
seems that I might then have the courage to write to 
her there. I could always send her a little money. 
And yet, she may not discover the truth for some time ! 
She probably never sees the Paris New York Herald! 
Her griefs are with her always! ” 

It had been with a brotherly tenderness that Moh- 
rendorf had watched for months over the Princess 
Prascovie. 

For the gallant noble remembered his own youthful 
days as First Secretary of Embassy with the splendid 
Prince Zastrow, at London, in the old days of Crimean 
“ storm and stress ”! 

And so, he had found out a safe retreat at Fontaine- 
bleau for “ Madame Mertens ” — a widowed lady of 
commercial rank. 

And the Princess was safe in this mercantile incog- 
nito. His prevision had also given her a loyal woman 
attendant, a stranded Russian merchant’s widow, and 
there was a modest little fiacre for the Princess to run 
around town in. 

No one had ever pierced the mystery of that heavy 
veil, and even Baptiste deeply regretted, with his ear at 
the keyhole, that the conversations of the Ambassador 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


21 1 


and his frequent visitor were all carried on in a strange 
language. 

For, Fate, otherwise so kind to Monsieur Baptiste 
Delorme, had denied him an education in the Polish 
tongue. 

“ Probably an old love, once a passion, now a mem- 
ory,” mused the judicious Baptiste, “ and a valuable 
memory to her,” for the smug secret spy rightly divined 
that the flames of passion had long since cooled upon 
the altar of the middle-aged woman’s lonely heart. 

But, he noted the deep respect of the Ambassador as 
always shown to his strange guest, and, at last, with a 
happy thought, the Frenchman guessed, at random: 

“ It is a connection, tres-honorable! A poor rela- 
tion ! ” 

When Count Ivan Mohrendorf entered his private 
cabinet, the Princess Prascovie was seated at the win- 
dow in an abandon of utter despair. 

She sprang up and seized the Count’s hands. 

“ There is news — there must be news! ” 

“ Alas! My dear friend, nothing! ” sighed the Am- 
bassador. 

“ It all seems so hard! I have exhausted all my per- 
sonal influence, and vet I can not trace thj veiled op- 
position to the Prince Paul’s pardon. The price of the 
property at Kief is agreed upon. The last legal for- 
mality only delays us now! For in his present state of 
ex-officer — subject not ‘ en regie ’ — and a soldier ab- 
sent from Russia without leave, the interest of your son 
in the property would, by law, descend to his innocent 
wife or child. We must, however, attach to the deed 
the proofs that there is no wife or child. For then, dear 
lady, you are the only heir, and your single deed, at- 
tested by me, would bring about the total payment 
forthwith! ” 

Ivan Mohrendorf buried his face in his hands as 
Prascovie Zastrow sprang up crying: 

“ Impossible! Never! ” 

The Ambassador lifted his head and gazed at her. 

“ This money, a portion of it, once in your hands, 
and used judiciously, would purchase his pardon. 
You know what Russia is,” he sadly sighed. “ And, 


212 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


after that, you could easily arrangg the other matters 
in time, if Wraxine should only die! ” 

He stood before her as she struggled with her war- 
ring soul, for the pardon of Paul Zastrow was the one 
temptation which life had still left to offer her! 

It was as if the door of Paradise swung open before 
her. 

“Do not tempt me, Ivan!” sobbed Prascovie Zas- 
trow, bursting into bitter tears. 

“ Read this letter! ” 

When the Ambassador had finished the words 
traced by the hand of honest Anastasius Petroffsky, he 
handed it sadly back to her! 

“ You are right, Madame la Princesse. Whatever 
is the way, it must not begin with the slaughter of the 
innocents! I have heard some dark hints as to the 
social pursuit of poor Marie Kriloff at Odessa — of her 
betrayal by' that heartless devil, the Karovitch, and 
that wanton Barbe Anykoff. And when I know that 
Xenie Karovitch made that hideous marriage; when I 
think of Wraxine' as he’ was, a man who never spared 
any woman, I feel that this lonely orphan was delivered 
— bound hand and foot — over tD shame. Better had 
she thrown herself over the beetling wall of the port, 
for this is nAw the beginning of the end, and the wages 
of sin is death! She must not be betrayed by you, at 
the last! Let her still think that there is One good 
woman left on earth, one human heart, brave, noble, 
and true! ” 

There was the light of manhood on his high brow, 
and Mohrendorf’s black eyes gleameu fiercely above 
his curling sable beard. 

u There is but one hope left now. De Giers has 
promised me a favor. He thinks I wish some gaudy 
personal preferment. Return to your home! I will 
telegraph to him in cipher, and beg, a tout hazard, for 
your son’s pardon, on the ground of a high Imperial 
justice. For then, he could testify even in America, and 
so frighten the Neckers and Kalomine by threatening 
a disclosure of all their frauds at Rovno ! Go, now, my 
dear friend! And, as for this fading white lily, we will 
try to bring the roses back to her cheeks! You must. 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 2I3 

at any rate, soon get the mother and child into Switz- 
erland! 1 will send my own courier. to guard and aid 
you! And, now, live in hopes, till I hear from De 
Giers! ” 

With the shadowed stars of her eyes beaming ten- 
derly upon him, Prascovie Zastrow passed out into the 
corridor! She drew back timidly a moment as the 
doors of the Consulate General opened, and then smiled 
as she dropped her veil and followed the departing 
crowd down the corridor. 

Count Mohrendorf stepped back into his office, dis- 
missing hastily Baptiste, who had just lit tlie two 
argands! 

“ Hasten and see Madame Mertens to her carriage !” 

“ Now for one last appeal to my dear old chief,” 
mused the Ambassador. “ De Giers never denied me 
a favor! This may stop this crowning crime — if we 
are quick enough — if he will only act! Oh! For just 
ten rrrnutes at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs! ” 

He had drawn out the mass of American newspaper 
clippings which the artful Baptiste had vainly tried to 
read, cursing them for being in English, a form of 
communication which he but dimly saw in his minds 
eye — “ as through a glass, darkly.” 

But the Ambassador suddenly dropped the papers, 
as there was the sound of trampling feet, and the 
frightened Baptiste suddenly dashed into the room : 

“ They are bringing her in here! My God! She is 
dying! ” 

And as the excited Count Mohrendorf sprang to the 
door, he saw a half dozen stalwart men tenderly bear- 
ing the senseless body of the Princess Prascovie. 

“ In here! ” cried the noble, throwing open the door 
of his private study. “ Get doctors, quick! ” 

Then, with a reverent hand, he tore aside the shroud- 
ing veil as the Princess Zastrow’s noble face was re- 
vealed in all the ashen pallor of death! 

It was the agile Baptiste who darted back with a 
caught-up flaqon of cognac; but, alas, the pallid lips 
were stained with a cold froth; the fingers twitched but 
feeblv as the majestic woman lay gasping upon the 
divan ! 


214 


TIIE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


Right and left the crowd parted as a gray-bearded 
physician glided to the side of the prostrate woman. 

With a wave of his hand, Doctor Auger motioned 
them all back. 

“ Restez, Monsieur l’Ambassadeur ! ” he muttered. 

In a few moments he lifted his head from the noble 
heart stilled forever. 

“Angina pectoris/’ he sadly said. “ C’en est fine! ” 

While the Doctor vainly strove to discern some last, 
lingering sign of life, Count Mohrendorf drew Baptiste 
and the waiting driver of the carriage aside into his 
study. 

“Tell me all, quickly!” the Ambassador sternly 
cried. 

“ There was a young gentleman and lady who came 
out of the Consulate General’s,” stammered Baptiste. 
“ I had followed Madame to aid her to her carriage! 
Suddenly she sees the gentleman, a handsome young 
monsieur! ‘ Paul! ’ she cries, in a breaking voice. The 
young lady is already in her carriage.” 

“ And,” broke in the coachman, “ he, the monsieur, 
pushes madame roughly off! ‘ You are; crazy,’ he 
cries, ‘ I know you not! ’ Pouf! The carriage dashes 
away! And, Madame then reels as if shot in the duel! 
With one sharp crv, she falls, raide morte! Voila tout! ” 

“ The young lady — une belle Americaine, blonde et 
tres richement vetue! ” hastily adds Baptiste. 

“ Summon the Consul General, instantly, to join me 
here! ” moodily cries Ivan Mohrendorf, his face becom- 
ing ashen pale with the horror of a dawning secret. 

When he entered his own room it was tenanted only 
by the majesty of death, for the physician was now 
guarding the door of the corridor where a crowd had 
quickly assembled. 

In five minutes there was a circle of all the fright- 
ened ladies of the Embassy watching over their sister 
of sorrows, while the coachman was lashing his horses 
to bring from Fontainebleau the humble woman who 
had divided Prascovie Zastrow’s sorrows for all these 
long weeks of waiting. 

Mechanically Count Mohrendorf replied to the vet- 
eran physician’s polite phrases. 


THE SHIELl* OF HIS HONOR 215 

“ Monsieur le Comte will find me ready to fulfill all 
the usual formalities. It was some sudden shock — a 
desperate foe is angina pectoris — a very sword of 
Damocles! ” 

He laid his professional card upon the table. 

“ I will visit you myself, or send my first secretary, 
Monsieur le Docteur Auger,” said the official. “ And 
the Commissary of Police shall be visited by myself in 
person.” The physician sented a scandal. 

“ The name of the decedent? ” silkily asked the prac- 
titioner. 

“ Madame Mertens,” replied the Ambassador, in a 
choking voice. “ A dear and a beloved friend.” 

Baptiste sprang to his master’s side. 

“ The Consul General had left by his private en- 
trance,” said the servant, “ and has not as yet learned 
of this distressing event. He has gone away to Ver- 
sailles to a little dinner with Monsieur le Comte; 
d’Orenburg. And, he will not return till to-morrow.” 

With an instant recognition of his subordinates 
usual amourettes, Mohrendorf cried: 

“ Bring me the Chancellor! ” 

Ten minutes later, Count Mohrendorf raised his 
head from a silent inspection of the Consul General’s 
official minutes. 

There was the tell-tale entry. 

“ Provisional passport of Prince Paul Zastrow and 
Madame la Princesse Clara Brandon Zastrow, is- 
sued and visad for a departure to Nice.” 

With a nod of his head, the Ambassador quietly dis- 
missed the young official. 

Left alone, he clenched his hands in a hopeless rage. 

“ And so this is a brutal murder; not a visitation of 
God! Cold-hearted, cowardly murder, and as base 
as he who denied Christ is the wretch who denied his 
mother. This gallant-hearted woman, God’s truco 
gift to a weary world ! ” 

And while the startled attaches were hurrying hither 
and thither on the business of the dark, name- 
less guest in that silenced room, loyal Ivan Mohren- 
dorf locked himself in to read the glowing forecasts of 
Paul Zastrow’s golden fortune. 


?.i6 


THE SHIELD OF HLS HONOR. 


For it seemed true that the disgraced noble had 
romantically married an American Queen of the Court 
of Mammon! 

Suddenly a thought swept over Mohrendorf’s mind 
which made him feel that a legacy of sacred love had 
descended upon him. 

“ Poor Marie Kriloff! ” sighed the startled man. 
“ And her helpless babe! This dog shall pay to the 
uttermost farthing! But I must think — think! ” 

And yet he hastily indited a telegram to Father 
Anastasius Petrofifsky at the Russian Chapel, Dresden, 
Saxony. 

Before midnight the good priest was roused up to 
read the fateful words. 

“ Come instantly to Paris as my guest. Report an- 
swer. Keep journey secret. Fail not.” 

The signature, “ Le Comte de Mohrendorf,” filled 
the old man’s heart with joy. 

“All is well — thank God!” the priest cried, as he 
sank to his knees. “ Her heart is at rest — at last ! ” 

For he hailed the good news which he fondly fancied 
now awaited Marie. 

And late that night, while the train was rushing 
along bearing the happy-hearted Petrofifsky, Ivan 
Mohrendorf sat silently at Versailles, watching over 
the stiffening form there, with the white roses hiding 
the untroubled breast. 

And God’s majestic pall of peace had descended 
upon the stately features now softening into the waxen 
beauty of past days. 

None of the attaches dared to try to pierce the mys- 
tery of the sudden visitation, and even the grave Com- 
missaire de Police had bowed and departed in a sad 
silence, awed by Mohrendorf’s haunting eyes. 

Only this stern, silent man knew that the brilliantly 
handsome couple who had suddenly flashed in at the 
Hotel Meurice, as “ risen golden stars,” had quickly 
taken the early evening train for Nice. 

It was a cowardly retreat! Only Ivan Mohrendorf 
knew of the secret of Paul Zastrow’s craven brutality 
and instant flight. 

“ There is always time enough for two things in this 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 21 J 

world,” growled Mohrendorf. “ Death and revenge! 
I will send those who shall find this unnatural coward 
out! Perhaps the Consul General knows something of 
this strange story. Perhaps I may have to face him, 
the matricide, with legal proofs. But first, to place 
Father Petroffsky here in charge of my dead sister of 
the heart. She shall go to her grave like a queen! ” 

It was almost an impossible fairy tale which Ivan 
Mohrendorf read in the printed slips sent to him by the 
Paris New York Herald for confirmation as to the 
young Don Juan’s identity. 

That Miss Clara Brandon, the willful and light- 
hearted heiress of Hugh Brandon, the great railway 
millionaire, should yield to a sudden romantic passion 
for tjie handsome Russian Prince on his travels, seemed 
to be a bit of appalling social recklessness, in view of 
the public record of Paul Zastrow’s duels, debts, esca- 
pades, intrigues, and darkly shaded exploits. 

And yet, there it all was, all set out in efflorescent 
American journalism. 

The romantic meeting of the lovers in Colorado ; the 
gallant record of the prospective bridegroom in the 
Imperial Guard ; his strange exile from Russia for 
some innocent political tangles ; the rumors of an early 
adjustment of the Prince’s temporary disfavor, and the 
description of the forthcoming festivities — the chatter 
of wedding dresses, jewels, social functions, and future 
glories. 

Ivan Mohrendorf laid down the comments of the op- 
portune journals, with an equal disgust; there were 
many agnostic doubts as to Paul Zastrow’s title, iden- 
tity, and station, closing with the wild adjuration : 
“ And so, old Hugh Brandon’s millions will be scat- 
tered by a reckless foreigner! Another American 
heiress duped, etc.” 

“ Pie is a cleverer scoundrel than I took him for ! ” 
growled the Ambassador. “ He only needed to desert 
his princely mother and break her heart to complete 
his record ! And yet, God has decreed him the one 
thing which he craved — his mother’s silence ! For 
this cold-hearted brute will now bargain for his par- 
don, with this silly girl’s money — and he will get it! 


218 the shield of his honor. 

There is no one left now to speak for poor Marie and 
her child ! It is the devil’s own juggling ! ” 

And then, the full, dastardly scheme rushed on 
Mohrendorf’s mind. 

“ He took some sudden alarm ! He hastened the 
marriage — perhaps he even forced an elopement ! And 
now, from Nice — the paradise of swindlers and wan- 
tons — he can safely bargain for his Imperial pardon ! 
He will succeed ! ” 

But the stern-hearted man standing there, as he took 
leave of the dead that night, laid his hand upon the 
pulseless heart. 

“ I swear to you,” he softly said, ‘Mead sister of 
mine! “that the deserted child shall find in me the 
father of the fatherless.” 

And then, when a week had glided away, all Pkris 
knew that a lady of the highest rank, visiting the Em- 
bassy incognito, had been laid away with all the stately 
splendor of the Greek Orthodox Church. 

The Czar’s representative himself was the chief 
mourner, and nothing was spared in the solemn rites, 
only, when all was over, two hollow-eyed men, seated 
in the Ambassador’s study, feared to ask each other 
“ What shall we do next? ” 

Beyond Mohrendorf’s careful sealing and removing 
to the Embassy of every sacred object touched by the 
vanished hand, there was nothing left in sight to 
achieve. 

Daily, Anastasius PetrofTsky, with the heart-stricken 
woman comrade of Princess Zastrow’s retirement, 
prayed beside the coffin, draped in its purple velvet 
pall, there in the somber vaults, and still covered with 
the unfaded roses showered upon her who dieH for her 
mother love — the woman who fought the losing battle 
for the helpless and the innocent. 

And, of the two who looked now at each other in a 
gloomy silence, the humble old priest was braver than 
the man who had often ridden in battle’s storm; for, 
while Petroffsky well knew that, while Count Mohren- 
dorf would follow up his grim work in silence, the 
Ambassador dared not ask the man of God which of 
them should tell Marie Kriloff of the death of the Prin- 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


219 


cess Zastrow, of Paul’s double betrayal, and the hor- 
ror of that broken oath still registered before high 
Heaven ! 

But a ferocious scowl settled upon Count Mohren- 
dorf’s face when he at last achieved the running 
through of his confidential corespondence. 

The courier from St. Petersburg had brought on a 
special bag, and there were cipher telegrams from Nice 
which roused him to action. 

He had already laid his plans for a secret vengeance 
upon the successful adventurer — the unnatural son 
who had so coldly disowned his princely hearted 
mother. 

Mohrendorf was a diplomat of the highest finesse, 
and the midnight train, after Prascovie’s death seizure, 
had carried his nephew, Serge, down to Nice on a 
delicate mission. 

“ Find out all about them ; ingratiate yourself with 
this honeymoon pair ; conceal your official character, 
and get my cipher telegrams at the Consulate. You 
can tell Consul Obranovitch there, Serge, that if he dis- 
closes your identity I will dismiss him forthwith from 
the Imperial service. He will have a telegraphed warn- 
ing from me! And, above all, conceal the death of 
Princess Prascovie.” 

And so, Serge Mohrendorf, the light-hearted third 
attache, beamed in upon the Vanity Fair on the Ri- 
viera as simply another golden Russian pigeon, wait- 
ing ready to be plucked. 

When this secret agent had been dispatched, the 
Ambassador had turned to the singularly startled Con- 
sul-General for an explanation of his action in issuing a 
passport to the man who had grasped old Hugh Bran- 
don’s millions by a forlorn hope dash upon the or- 
phaned heiress’ heart. 

Mohrendorf listened calmly to the Consul-General’s 
specious statement, as he sat there toying with his jew- 
eled cigarette-case. 

“ He had his book of birth, the certified marriage 
papers; and, as a noble by birth, I could not refuse 
him a temporary passport, and a full one, for Madame 
la Princesse.” 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


220 


“ If you had consulted me/’ said the Ambassador, 
“ you would have learned that it was beyond your 
power to give these papers, for Paul Zastrow is under 
attaint, until his disabilities are legally removed. He 
can use no rights as a Russian noble until he has 
either been pardoned or returned to Russia to stand in 
jeopardy. You may now erase the entry on your offi- 
cial minutes, or, better, indorse — ‘Annulled by the or- 
der of the Ambassador ’ ! I have already telegraphed 
to Obranovitch, at Nice, to take up the two passports. 
Leave the whole matter now in my hands ! ” 

And when the Consul-General had made his escape, 
he wondered if Paul Zastrow would dare to demand 
back the golden bribe which had paid off the Consul- 
General's most pressing gambling debts. 

Left alone in his study, the superior followed his re- 
treating subordinate with scornful eyes. 

“ Of course, Zastrow bought this base tchinovik’s 
certificate ! It is as well to let Zastrow lose his bribe ; 
but Serge can take up the two passports easily through 
the Consul at Nice — and I can hold the annullment 
over them ! ” 

Count Ivan Mohrendorf had recalled the crushing 
blow of the sudden loss of his own beautiful wife and 
child, in the days of his buoyant youth, and now, still a 
widower at sixty, the silvered hair and care-furrowed 
face told of his sorrow’s vigil in these long, lonely 
years. 

He had vainly tried to find a way to safely commu- 
nicate the death of the Princess Prascovie to the help- 
less woman, with a strange flutter of joy in her heart, 
now awaiting the priest’s return at Dresden. 

“ As usual, lying gives the only temporary relief! " 
muttered Mohrendorf, when he directed Father An- 
astasius to write to his anxious wife, speciously ex- 
plaining his delay by the illness of the Princess Zas- 
trow. 

“ And you may as well say that the affairs are all in 
good shape, and that you will be detained several 
weeks, awaiting the course of business by my orders.” 

<r My church?” gasped the faithful priest. 

“ Let your assistant attend to it,” kindly said Moh- 


THE SHIELD OF IIIS Ht)NOR. 


221 


rendorf. “ I’ve telegraphed my colleague at Berlin 
that you are my guest on a vacation of a month ; for 
I must conceal Princess Zastrow’s death in order to 
help these two helpless ones ! ” 

And Anastasius Petroffsky began to wonder at the 
Ambassador’s sagacity when he wrote, at his dictation, 
a priestlv appeal to the Baroness Xenie Kalomine, nee 
Karovitch, to surrender for the use of the suffering 
■ Marie Kriloff the inheritance legally forfeited to her 
by Marie’s flight. 

The appeal, as dictated, brought scalding tears to 
the honest priest’s eyes, but he murmured : “ They 

will surely find her out through this. God knows 
what may not happen ! ” 

“Never!” calmly said Mohrendorf. “They will 
only look for her here; you will date it at Paris, and 
I will send it on to the Metropolitan, of St. Petersburg. 
He, the head of the Synod of Our Holy Church, is free 
of their spies, and — upon her answer now will depend 
peace or war! For, I will strike a blow which will 
reach their flinty hearts ! ” The old man’s soul was 
stirred by the misery of the innocent ! 

There was a subject which neither of the men dared 
to face — the future of the innocent natural child, look- 
ing only for a station and name to the callous father 
whose brutal denial had slain his own mother! 

“ Poor innocent ! In the panther’s claws ! ” sighed 
Mohrendorf. 

“ Paul Zastrow’s simple denial consigns it to the 
Russian Foundling Asylum, or else to the flinty char- 
ity of the German authorities.” 

And then/with a tender pity, the Ambassador lis- 
tened to simple Kazia Petroffsky’s home letters. 

“ Our dear Lily lady is wearing out her tender spirit ! 
There is a light in her eves which I never saw before ! 
And yet, she has dreamed her own happy dreams ! 
That the Princess Zastrow has gone to America to 
bring Paul home, and that all will soon be well ! And, 
Anastasius, should there be bad news, you must be 
here to cheer her, for she is wearing nearer to the 
other world every day. The little one is rosy and 


222 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


sturdy, and only God’s sunlight shines down on his 
beaming face.” 

“ I can not undeceive her,” said Mohrendorf, with 
a groan. “ You are the holder of God’s hope — of His 
Word. We must find the most merciful way.” 

It was two weeks after Prascovie Zastrow had been 
laid in the tomb when Father Anastasius was suddenly 
called from Fontainebleau to the Embassy. 

The carriage wa's the Ambassador’s own, and Pe- 
troffsky hastened to obey the orders of Baptiste. 

“The house here is to go on just the same. You 
are to say nothing of your movements. I have orders 
to bring away all your luggage/’ 

While Baptiste spoke to the woman, who bitterly 
mourned her vanished mistress, the old priest descend- 
ed to the carriage. 

“ It is His Excellency’s wish,” said Baptiste, “ that 
this house remain just as Madame Martens left it! 
Not a thing is to be changed, and you will receive all 
vour supplies and orders through me ! ” 

The watchful Baptiste was doomed to a sad disap- 
pointment when Count Mohrendorf and the priest sat 
down to a dinner served in the private study. 

A sudden commission at Flavre betook him away 
for a two days’ absence. 

“ Peste,” he growled, “ I must obey or else lose my 
place; and now, I shall never be able to tell the Minis- 
ter of Foreign Affairs who Madame Mertens was ! 
Robbed — simply robbed — of fifty thousand extra francs 
in this ! ” 

But, Baptiste was wise in his generation, and he 
found that he was closely watched all the way to Havre. 

And none of the twenty curious gossips in the Em- 
bassy — not even the frightened Consul-General — knew 
how Father Anastasius Petroffskv vanished that night, 
or whither ; for he was not seen again, and his rusty 
black robe had left no telltale shadow behind it ! 

The Ambassador himself had slept abroad that even- 
ing; and even the station agent, who quickly switched 
on a special car for Nice, never knew that its sole oc- 
cupant was an obscure priest, after the second passen- 
ger had leaped out on a siding, a hundred miles from 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


223 


Paris. It was a case of “ stole away,” and all the spies 
were left in wonderment and ignorance. 

Father Anastasius, startled by the imperative injunc- 
tions of Count Mohrendorf, did not dare till daybreak 
to look at the pocketbook which had been presed on 
him for the voyage, but the sum of ten thousand 
francs, in blue bank billets, seemed to him a princely 
fortune. 

He could hear the Count’s last words ringing in his 
ears : “You are to obey my nephew Serge ! He will 
meet you ; he will come to you later at Dresden, and — 
you shall yet have your reward. Fear nothing, trust 
in God — the wolf will never enter your door ! ” 

Shielded bv the mighty noble, whose hoarded up . 
wealth was proverbial in Russia, a Count of the Em- 
pire ; a patrimonial suzerain, whose scattered lands 
were veiled in Ural snows and parched in Kherson 
heat ; who owned mines, and fleets, fat herds and mane- 
tossing bands of Ukraine steeds, yet Anastasius Pe- 
troffskv betook himself to prayer, knowing what lay 
before him. 

“ Life ! What is Life ! ” murmured the priest. “ Oply 
the long record of human heartbreak ; of disappointed 
hopes ; of mad folly, or of dull despair ! We are only 
as shadows that pass — mere phases — the empty echo of 
a voice, soon stilled in the all-pervading silence of 
Death! For, only Death is King; his gloomy scepter 
casts its shadow alike over the arched Imperial crown, 
the triple tiara of Popes, the pafioplv of the haughty 
warrior, the bewitching presence of loveliness in its 
vernal bloom ! To-morrow — but a brief to-morrow — 
and we are all as nothing! ” 

Pale and stern in the moonlight, clasping his hands 
in a warm adieu, Mohrendorf had given him his last 
orders. 

“ You will tell this American Princess the whole 
story ! And — do my nephew’s bidding ! ” 

There was but one golden gleam — the loy?l ring of 
Mohrendorf’s voice, as he swore to be as a father to 
the helpless child, left nameless now, and with no es- 
tate but the inheritance of the bastard’s shame. 

Dominated by the iron will of Mohrendorf, the priest 


2?4 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

dared not let his thoughts run on to his humble home ; 
but he had silently written the messages and letters 
which he had left behind, to be forwarded by the Am- 
bassador, who had sent a liberal douceur of money to 
the delighted Kazia — a woman of practical parts and 
few idealities. 

“ Not a word is to precede your own arrival,” was 
the Count’s last order; “ but, Serge will go and bring 
your wife to you on your arrival in Dresden. For she, 
too, will have her part to play. And, Serge will guide 
her ! ” 

Before Father Anastasius reached Nice upon his 
mysterious mission, Count Ivan Mohrendorf had seen 
the light flash across the deeply laid designs of the au- 
dacious young bridegroom ! 

For the diplomatic bag from the Neva had brought 
to Mohrendorf the cold-hearted ultimatum of the tri- 
umphant Baroness Xenie Kalomine. 

Addressed to the priest, it breathed all the venom of 
her husband, intent now upon quickly swallowing up 
Princess Zastrow’s last estates, in the ignorance of her 
death. 

“ Let the outcast work, or starve! ” were the words 
of scorn penned by the victorious Xenie. “ She hurled 
herself down, and now, she knows what a shield of 
honor — a lover’s faith — is ! Disgrace to our family, 
let the grave hide her ! She has marketed her charms, 
and is now paying the price. The law forces her in- 
heritance upon me, there being no child. And — I only 
obey the Czar! Not one single rouble will I send! Let 
Madame la Princesse Zastrow support her ! She has 
openly harbored her son’s paramour.” 

“ Cursed be this foul hypocrite ! ” growled Mohren- 
dorf. “ Thanks be to God, innocent or not, I can en- 
force the restitution of this property to Marie Kriloff’s 
child! If the law has sharp teeth, it also has a long 
arm! My Lady, the game is only on, now! ” 

There was also a startling surprise in Baron Alex- 
andre Kalomine’s final answer to the propositions of 
sale of the estate. 

“ I have great regret in informing your Excellency 
that the great sugar factories at Kief, for which we 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 225 

were treating, were totally destroyed by fire, three 
weeks ago ; and, as the insurances were transferred to 
me, the moneys become legally mine. For the lands 
themselves, they are still covered by the mortgages for 
my cash advances, and will be so held ! For these 
there can be no settlement till the final title of young 
Prince Paul Zastrow shall be joined. And so, wheth- 
er he may be pardoned or not, his son would hold these 
lands. His marriage to an American heiress of mil- 
lions is reported by telegraph. I would recommend 
Madame la Princesse Zastrow to apply to her son, now 
vastly enriched, for funds ! ” 

The Ambassador sighed as he dropped the letters. 
“ Poor Prascovie ! How well you kept the secret of 
Marie’s sad motherhood ! And yet, even this may be 
the means of trapping them — for a claim can be put in 
on behalf of the child ! By Saint Vladimir ! Kalomine 
has stolen the insurance money ! No doubt he burned 
the mills to get it ! . Six hundred thousand roubles in 
one vast theft ! ” 

There was but one document left ; and it was an hour 
before Ivan Mohrendorf had deciphered his nephew 
Serge’s lengthy dispatch. 

But there was a gleam of triumph in the old diplo- 
mat’s eyes when he scanned the completed translation. 

“ Just in time! God is with us! The enemy gives 
us the breathing spell that I must have.” 

Serge’s energetic appeal had roused every tingling 
nerve to action. 

“ You must send an agent here at once. Zastrow 
has freely confided in me. He goes to Vienna to-mor- 
row to meet the Imperial Bank Director Kalomine. 
Zastrow’s American wife is a most charming girl, 
simply toying with the title of Princess. But, she is 
both noble and generous, and, anxious to shine at 
Court. She has already given her bridegroom a great 
money present.” 

“ Under pretense of a gentlemen’s hunting party 
with Prince Schwartzenburg, Zastrow goes alone to 
Vienna ; leaves me here as social introducer to his wife. 
The Prince is still ignorant of his mother’s death. 
Kalomine is to use the funds and get Paul Zastrow’s 


226 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


pardon in return for his silence as to Rovno frauds. 
The finance ring can do all they wish. Zastrow is to 
wait at Vienna till Kalomine returns to St. Petersburg, 
telegraphs the pardon, and then, will take his wife there. 
The Grand Duke Anatole is their catspaw. He was 
Madame Kalomine’s lover ! ” 

“ Now, by the gods of war,” cried the happy Count. 
“ I will let him fool himself ! And — I will take a trip 
myself to the Neva! Prince Paul shall find an inter- 
rupted honeymoon ! ” 


CHAPTER XIII. 

AN INTERRUPTED HONEYMOON. 

The gray mists of a lowering afternoon were 
drifting through the olive and ilex trees hiding the 
Villa Amati, when the Princess Clara Zastrow turned 
her saddened face away from the window. 

For, in all the far expanse of leaden sea and gray 
skies, the dreary stretch of fog-wrapped hills, she saw 
no comfort in her enforced widowhood of a dozen days. 

It was but two days since the bright and resolute 
bridegroom had strained her to his breast, murmuring: 

“ Darling, be brave, for my sake! Keep my secret! 
I only go to Vienna that you may receive your sum- 
mons to the Court on the Neva! ” 

And so, Clara Brandon, hardly yet familiar with her 
new title and changed name, listened trustfully to that 
voice which had never yet sued to a woman in vain. 

It had been so easy for the handsome husband to 
arouse every drop of her unspent romanticism, and so, 
with moist, but tenderly loving eyes, she had watched 
the soldierly looking lover wave his last adieu from the 
lodge gates. 

And artfully Prince Paul had also aroused her girl- 
ish terrors with weird stories of Russian duplicity! 

“ Not a word to a living soul but me. Trust to no 
one! Keep your counsel; smile on all, yet say nothing, 
for Nice is almost a Russian colony, and the tide of 
court intrigue ebbs and flows here as on the Neva! 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 227 

Every choice bit of esclandre bubbling out here, reaches 
the Czar’s Court by telegraph ! ” 

And so, with all the faith of a new-made wife, a 
proud, passionate girl now in love with Love, for 
Love’s own sweet sake, Princess Clara felt no distrust 
when the Russian Consul-General called and took 
away the two passports “ for revision.” 

“ These are the mere thousand-and-one formalities of 
our Russian system,” laughed Paul. “ It is simply 
loaded down with obsolete red tape! But, I will soon 
sweep this all away, for the Grand Duke Anatole is my 
secret friend, and you shall hear it soon from his own 
princely lips in the Winter Palace.” 

The brilliant young Princess Zastrow had already 
drawn a court of flatterers around her, and in this new 
fairyland she was happy to range from Cap San Mar- 
tin to Vinti, Menton, Monaco, Villefranche, and 
Antibes, in the lead of a joyous procession following 
her youth, golden beauty, and the magic wand of 
wealth. 

This rich, buoyant, social life seemed so different to 
the hardscrabble business death-grapple of the rough 
city of Denver. 

And even Nature wooed the young bride in her un- 
folding life, the warm south wind caressing her here in 
these enchanted hills, so rich, so storied — so far away . 
from the bleak crags of Colorado ! 

And the men, too, were a different race from the lean 
money-grubbers of the Golden West ; the sallow spec- 
ulators, jaded “ business men,” and promoted day la- 
borers of her native Denver. 

The mellow Italian, the suave, insinuating French, 
the automaticailv obsequious hochwohlgeboren Ger- 
mans, all courted this golden goose whose feathers 
were being deftly plucked ! 

Alas ! Clara Brandon, her heart resurgent with 
loosened love, forgot Offenbach’s merry lines — 
“ Courtiers must be ever bowing — ever bowing ! ” 

In all the luxuriance of princely coronets, now paint- 
ed, curved, festooned, and monogrammed over her yet 
shop-raw Parisian outfit — “ en grande dame ” — the 
dazzled child of the self-made American never realized 


228 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

that, though “ she ruled the roast,” she “ paid the 
scot ’’ for,, all the flatterers who bowed before her! She 
was simply a Horn of Plenty ! 

She had been perfectly happy until Paul’s departure 
for Vienna upon this mysteriously veiled mission, for 
the life at Nice enchanted her. 

And it was Baron Serge Mohrendorf who had 
drawn the curtains of the delightful Vanity Fair The 
tall, blne-eved Russian aristocrat had easily captivated 
the sly Prince Paul. 

For all men knew that the Baron was the third at- 
tache of the Russian Embassy at Paris — a man of high 
standing, and the nephew and heir of one of the Czar’s 
most princely subjects. 

With sleek self-gratulation and a growing content- 
ment, Prince Paul Zastrow saw his friend Serge Moh- 
rendorf rally a choice circle of “ blue blood ” around 
the pretty American milionairess bride, upon whose 
girlish brows a coronet had seemingly dropped from 
cloudland. 

Clara Zastrow listened in a dreamy delight to the 
forthcoming round of waiting social joys — the yacht 
races, the Tir aux Pigeons, the Bataille des Fleurs, the 
dinners, the masques, and grandes bals de societe, the 
fetes champetre, and all the easy ways of linking one 
happy day to another in the heated, fictitious Para- 
dise of the Riviera. 

The high-sounding titles seemed still toothsome 
morsels — “ Countess, Marchesa,” “ Madame la Prin- 
cesse ” — and, at every soiree, the stately, insidious 
young Don Juans proudly bore the uniforms of the 
whole world — the stars, ribands, and orders of a dozen 
Kings and Emperors. It was a Cinderella’s Ball ! 

And thus, her heart was proud and thrilled as she 
wandered on the Promenade des Anglais, or swept 
along in her victoria through the leafv mazes of Castle 
Hill. 

Gliding out on the moonlit waters, she soon learned 
to love the mellow Venetian barcaroles; and the wine 
of Life stirred in her heart, an opening rose. 

The Princess Zastrow, brilliantly clad, “ en reine de 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR, 229 

Saba,” was the star of the Iardin Public — the queen 
of the opera, the belle of every ball. 

And no lighter heart was wafted down the happy 
days — like a feather ball — than beat in the bosom of 
the child of the man who had strained up to fortune, 
twisting, for years, a grimy railway brake; the girl 
whose drudging mother had followed an emigrant 
wagon from “ Saint Joe ” to Denver, in the days when 
her poor possessions were only a few calico frocks and 
a string of glass beads ! 

And yet, there was a high soul, a dauntless spirit, 
dwelling in the symmetrical frame of this audacious 
young American beauty. 

Though feebly furnished forth with graces at the 
Denver Academy, she had blossomed out into a 
dreamy eyed young Queen of Mammon, and budded 
into a princess with the rapidity of a dream of the 
night. She had brought but some useful accomplish- 
ments away from the Denver finishing school — for- 
tunately a good knowledge of French, Italian, and Ger- 
man. 

Happy at heart, Clara Zastrow, on the evening of 
her debut in the “ golden book ” circle of Nice, had 
gazed at her own resplendent self in the mirror, which 
showed her an enchanting vision ! 

Thrilled with happiness, she joyously cried : “ I am 

a Princess now — a real Princess — and, I owe it all to 
Paul, my hero husband! ” It had been easy for her 
** hero husband ” to sidetrack one or two little haunt- 
ing annoyances at Nice 

Old amourettes, forgotten debts, a dangerous gossip 
or two, were deftly handled : and his crowning touch 
of genius was the superb diamond bracelet which re- 
called him to that merciless social fiend, the old Prin- 
cesse Cravekowski, an ogre who had never in her 
life spared a trembling victim. 

“ You may have forgotten our little wager,” smiled 
Prince Paul — “ our bet that I would be married with- 
in ten years ! Permit me, Madame la Princesse, to 
show you that I never forget, and — to introduce you 
to my wife ! ” 

It was magnificently done, for, over the helpless head 


230 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

of the lonely American ingenue now waved the awful 
victorious ensign of the hardy old Crayekowski, — a 
proud Muscovite dame whose bitter tongue even the 
Czar feared ! 

And, happy in all her splendor, the whole of the Ri- 
viera admitted that the Princess Clara “ avait bien fait 
son chemin ! ” 

The clouds flitted away from the listless Clara Zas- 
trow’s face as the butler presented the card of Baron 
Serge Mohrendorf. 

She never waited to notice the penciled words, but 
gladly cried: “ I will receive Monsieur le Baron.” 

In her mind were happy visions of the Grand Bal 
d'Hiver, at which, under the guardianship of the Prin- 
cess Crayekowski, she was to lead the cotillon with 
Baron Serge Mohrendorf. 

“ Tout Nice ” was on the qui vive — for the rumor 
of the magnificent dress from Monsieur Worth’s atelier 
—added a new zest to Clara’s graces, for it was true 
that the child of the Denver brakeman danced like a 
wave of the sea. 

But, the Princess Zastrow became suddenly grave as 
Serge Mohrendorf introduced Consul-General Obran- 
ovitch and the pallid-faced priest, Father Anastasius. 

“ I am charged with a letter from our Ambassador 
at Paris,” soberly said the young attache, as he led the 
startled girl aside. 

“ Paul — my God ! — tell me ! ” There is nothing 
wrong ! ” gasped the bride, a Princess, surely, but yet 
all a woman now ! 

“ It only concerns your future rank at the Russian 
Court,” frankly said Serge ; “ and, after you have read 
this letter, I advise you to confer with these gentlemen ! 
You can trust to them — upon my honor! I answer for 
them with my life and body. They represent the Am- 
bassador also! ” 

Poor Cinderella, Clara Zastrow ! The blood left her 
heart in a wild wave, for the taking away of the pass- 
ports had been an ominous cloud upon this interrupted 
honeymoon. 

And Paul’s warning words also ! 

“ Shall I not telegraph to my husband ? ” faltered the 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


23 £ 


young Princess, her trembling fingers breaking the 
great family seal of the patrician Ambassador. 

“ By no means ! ” earnestly cried Serge Mohrendorf. 
“ It concerns his mother — and yourself — and in all that 
touches the Prince Paul Zastrow. The Count Moh- 
rciidorf will personally communicate later with him.’’ 

The frightened girl read the lines and then gazed 
with astonishment upon Serge. 

“ I am to go to Dresden — alone ! ” she gasped. 

“ Not so! ” said Serge. “ Madame Obranovitch is 
forced to go there to consult her physician ; Father 
Anastasius will also be of the party ! I will secure a 
private car. By Mont Cenis and Basle, and Wurz- 
burg, you can reach Dresden to-morrow night ! Say 
nothing! Take even no maid ! I will remain here and 
answer for the safety of the Villa Amati. And, Mad- 
ame Obranovitch will take her maid to attend you, and 
I will send a courier of the Embassy to take entire 
charge of your voyage.” 

“ But, I have no passport ! ” murmured the fright- 
ened young Princess. 

“ Your individual passport and that of your husband 
will be delivered to you at Dresden. Father Anasta- 
sius is the confidential representative of my uncle, and 
is the official Russian priest in Dresden,” slowly said 
Serge. 

Clara Zastrow gazed earnestly in Serge Mohren- 
dorf’s eyes. 

In their clear, blue depths she saw no deceit! 

Thinking of her husband’s imperiled name — of the 
unknown mother whom she soon hoped to meet in 
Russia — she frankly extended her hand ! “ I will trust 
you! Take me to them! I will go! ” 

It was with a pitying sigh that Serge Mohrendorf 
left the villa, a half an hour later, to arrange for the. 
private car to be attached to the train “ de grande 
vitesse.” 

He left behind him the Consul-General, eagerly 
watching the colloquy between Clara Zastrow and the 
grave-faced cleric in the long, black robe. 

Though Father Anastasius was a child of poverty, 
he was bred as a gentleman. 


232 


THE SHIELD OF IIIS HONOR. 


And it was a sad, plaintive face, with the long, black 
locks falling upon his shoulders — the pleading, pity- 
ing eyes — the waving, sable, silvered beard. 

There was no point of color in his whole costume 
save the jeweled pectoral cross and the slender golden 
chain with which his withered fingers played. He was 
not sworn to the service of the Golden Calf. 

“Poor child!” mused the Consul. “Trapped by 
this heartless adventurer — hunted down for the golden 
charms which are heaped up in her banker’s vaults ! 
It is the last — the meanest — the most cowardly — of 
Prince Paul Zastrow’s betrayals ! A helpless morsel 
of that defenseless game hunted since the expulsion 
from Paradise, poor, love-blinded woman ! ” 

There was a fatherly tenderness in the old Greek 
priest’s voice as he gazed upon the brilliant young 
beauty, who now yielded her faith to his simple, manly 
solicitude. 

And, there was almost a sob in Anastasius’s voice 
as he thought of the beautiful, pale face at Dresden — 
the mournful, earnest eyes of the deserted Marie Kri- 
loff, which gazed out of the window into the lonely 
street of the humble Altstadt. 

His wife’s letter had told him of the ominous wear- 
ing away of the White Lily. 

The priest recalled that deserted young mother, 
standing there in her white robe, with her fatherless 
child caught to her bosom in a yearning frenzy of 
Love ! 

“ It is the Virgin of Murillo — she who stands in the 
crescent in that immortal picture of the Hermitage ! 
She is in the hands of Death, poor, lonely heart, and 
this bright-browed child is caught in the panther’s 
claws ! May God pardon Paul Zastrow ! There is no 
altar of God that he may dare approach, for to the 
threshold haunted by this broken heart I must lead this 
golden girl from the great land beyond the wild, green 
Atlantic ! Led by Love — both of them — one down- 
ward to her death, the other — whither? ” 

The simple old man prayed to the God above to 
spare this other orphaned child. 

From Anastasius’s simple words, Clara Zastrow 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


233 


learned that the fate of her husband’s mysterious mis- 
sion to Vienna rested in her own loyal hands, and so 
she gave the confidence of her heart to both the men. 

“ I am a father, Madame la Princesse,” said Obrano- 
vitch, in a broken voice. “ I bring you now my wife 
to conduct you to Dresden and to return with you ! 
Your trust in my honor shall not be abused ; and I now 
ask you, on behalf of Count Mohrendorf, who repre- 
sents the Czar’s own personal dignity, that you will 
say nothing of this Dresden visit to the Prince Zas- 
trow. It would gravely affect his future — far more 
seriously than your own ! To show you our power, we 
receive, hourly, telegrams from Vienna, where he is at 
present negotiating with Director Kalomine, of the 
Imperial St. Petersburg Bank ; also, from Paris, where 
Count Mohrendorf is in hourly communication with 
the Grand Duke Anatole ! This concerns your rank 
and future as a Russian princess — your own affairs.” 

Clara Zastrow was frozen into a terrified silence as 
the last name fell upon her ear, but she bowed her head 
with a fitting dignity as Obranovitch humbly kissed 
her hand. 

“ Be pleased to be ready at eight ! I will bring my 
wife here — all the others will be at the station ; and I 
will answer for your villa! I have Count Mohren- 
dorf’s orders ! ” 

Here was the fTrst problem of Life brought to the 
lonely American girl by her legal rank of Princess. 
It was no matter of a mere puppet show! 

The brave American girl was sobbing alone in her 
room as the two men were whirled away through the 
gardens, where the lemon and orange now gleamed 
green and golden on the trees. 

And, she was weighed down with the presage of dis- 
aster. 

But the departing men saw none of the beauties of 
this lover’s retreat ! 

They were gloomily silent, and each of them sadly 
recalled the beautiful, glowing girl-wife, a human blos- 
som in the ardor of her nineteen years ! 

Her exquisite form ; the bright, fearless face, with its 
aureole of golden hair ; the tender blue eyes, like vio- 


234 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

lets dashed with the honey-dew of the early summer ; 
the rosebud lips, eager to taste the golden cup of Life 
and Love; the witching music of her flute-like voice — 
and, the wifely love and womanly faith shining out as 
she stood before them there, with her graceful arms 
crossed upon her heaving bosom. 

Michael Obranovitch had coldly watched the pas- 
sion play of the social sham at Nice for a long twenty 
years — and he sighed to recall how many fresh young 
hearts had failed there by the curved shores of the 
white-crested, blue, unanswering sea! 

“ Woman’s life harvest — blasted hopes, broken idols 
— the gleaning of her autumn fields, is only tears and 
sighs ! ” he murmured. 

And yet, he recalled the dignified bravery of this 
young Star of the West — the quick decision, the stead- 
fast faith in her three strange counselors ! It was to 
him a new revelation of womanhood ! 

“ Perhaps there is a lion heart vet to be awakened, 
under the gentle billows of that white bosom. If she 
should be strong as well as true — if she should be able 
to lean upon herself in this, her hour of trial — this gal- 
lant child of the far-away mountain city — then, she 
may be the victor, after all ! She may not yield up her 
buttressed gold for this desperate libertine to shower 
upon the painted Aspasias of the gutters of the Riviera ! 
To conquer him- -and be a Princess indeed — that 
would be the heroic victory of a brave womanhood ! ” 

When the morning of the second day broke, the 
gilded train of flunkies in the Villa Amati only knew 
that the Princess Zastrow had departed with Madame 
Obranovitch for a peep at the enchanted lake where 
beautiful Bellagio divides the sparkling crystal of 
Como. It was an innocent deceit, for they were merely 
luxurious time-servers. 

The careful Consul-General had sent up a dozen of 
his secret agents to watch the exterior of the princely 
villa, where the Baron Serge Mohrendorf smiled sadly 
as he answered Prince Zastrow’s lover-like telegrams. 
They ceased at last, for Paul, happy in Vienna with 
the seeming accomplishing of his designs with the 
crafty Kalomine, had easily consoled himself with the 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 235 

news that his wife had departed for a “ petite tour de 
campagne ” with Madame Obranovitch ! 

“ Et pourquoi, non? ” 

There was the bewitching Racowitza, the last adored 
Magyar nightingale, and the wild-hearted Countess 
Pahlen, supping “ en petite comite ” with the two con- 
spirators, where sparkling wine and wicked wit — where 
stolen kisses and mutual sighs — told of the sweetness 
of the passing hour ! 

The panther’s feet had led Prince Paul, a riotous 
young Bacchus, back to his under world ! 

But, even the reckless Zastrow would have started up 
in dismay had he known that his girl-wife was kneel- 
ing, for the first time in her life, before the jeweled 
icons and the anointed altar of the Russian church ; 
that she was in far-away Dresden, near the exquisite 
woman whose life he had wrecked, and that she had 
already held in her arms the fatherless babe of Marie 
Kriloff — an innocent harvest of sweet and unforgot- 
ten sin ! 

And, though she, too, was in the panther’s claws, the 
young Princess of the Golden West was safe in God’s 
hands ; and there were black shadows stealing along 
in the somber shades which hid Paul Zastrow’s double 
life from his millionaire bride — black, avenging shad- 
ows which fell darkly across the silvered face of this 
happy honeymoon, and the veiled goddess Fortuna 
stood menacingly beside him, her hand ready to strike ! 
The cruel game of cross purposes in High Life was on 
— a battle to the death ! 

Princess Clara Zastrow had made the transit of 
Lombardy in a trance of expectant wonder, and when 
Mont Cenis’s gloomy bosom had been traversed, her 
eyes rested in delight upon the awful majesty of the 
wintry Alps. 

Her innocent heart was stirred in a wild unrest, for 
though Madame Obranovitch lavished every woman- 
ly tenderness upon her, she could see the wild pathos 
of the Russian priest’s eyes as he murmured his pray- 
ers in his forced calm ! 

The great silver-crested peaks smiled down upon 
her, lit up with God’s awful rose of dawn, and her half- 


236 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

forgotten childhood’s days came back in a flood of 
tears, as she murmured : “ My far-away mountain 

home ! ” 

And then, the mystic chords of affection led her 
back, in fancy, to the graves of the workaday father 
and mother, deep buried beneath the chilling Denver 
snows. For, alone in a strange land, — she missed their 
unselfish love! 

When Basle was passed, and the train tore along 
through the Black Forest, still haunted with the 
ghosts of myriads of warriors slain, she knew that her 
companion would stay but one day in Dresden. 

Neither Father Anastasius nor Madame Obrano- 
vitch had broken the brooding silence as to the real 
object of her own visit. 

A hundred times she had read over the letter of that 
mighty Ambassador, Count Ivan Mohrendorf ; and so, 
when Dresden was reached, the girl-bride, worn out 
with a thousand startling new visual impressions, 
dropped her head in the relief of an exhausting sleep, 
under the stately roof of the Europaischer Hof. 

Princess Clara gazed with astonishment at the 
quaint old city when, next morning, conducted by 
Madame Obranovitch, she was driven to the Russian 
chapel. 

Her companion led her aside, after the American 
princess had been greeted by the wondering Kazia Pe- 
troffskv, with the reverence due to one descended from 
the skies. 

“ I will come to take you away at eleven o’clock to- 
night, Princess,’' gravely said the Consul’s wife. “ Our 
railway carriage will be attached to the midnight train ! 
Trust these good people even with your heart and soul ! 
You are safe here, under God’s roof ! His Mighty Arm 
is shielding you ! ” 

The lonely American bride knelt before the altar, an 
hour later, where, in the dim chapel, gloomy now, in 
the wintry shadows of northern Germany, she could 
only see the outlines of one woman’s graceful form, 
shrouded in black ; but, raising her own head later, 
after the echoes of Father Anastasius’s deep voice had 
rolled away, lost in the dark groins of the chapel, Clara 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 237 

Zastrow in astonishment, saw Kazia Petroffsky enter, 
bearing- in her arms a child of surpassing beauty. 

The young Princess’s eyes were filled with tears 
when the choir of men and boys triumphantly sang 
the triumphal finale of the impressive Greek Mass. 

Lost in thought, she was lingering there alone, still 
on her bended knees, when Father Anastasius, clad in 
his robes, laid a kindly hand upon her shoulder. 

Rise ! my daughter ! ” he said, with dignity, after 
blessing her with a majestic wave of his shriveled hand. 

The old priest then led the wondering woman into 
the sacristy, where he seated her with a courtly hos- 
pitality. 

“ t have brought you here, mv daughter,” simply 
said the cleric, “ that, in the peace of God’s own house, 
vou should look forward into vour future life.” 

• Handing her a letter sealed with Count Mohren- 
dorf’s crest, he then sank upon his knees, while the 
beautiful woman read the pages which opened up to 
her the leaves of the hitherto sealed Rook of Fate. 
And now she felt the weight of the coronet of a Rus- 
sian Princess — and the undying obligation of a loyal 
wife. 

When the startled Princess Zastrow sprang up, as 
Anastasius rose and gazed inquiringly into her clear 
eyes, she murmured : “ And this is, then, true, Fath- 

er, that I must be baptized into the Greek Orthodox 
Church, and make my confession, before I have the 
legal right to the title of a Russian Princess ? ” 

“ Even so ! ” answered the priest. “ Read that ! ” he 
solemnly said, handing her another letter. “ I have 
here the two passports of yourself and your husband ! 
He will only receive his own, from Consul Obrano- 
vitch ; but you, my child, are to be duly protected, for 
you stand on the clouded threshold of the Woman’s 
Kingdom.” 

Clara Zastrow’s eves filled with scalding tears when 
she handed back the Ambassador’s private letter to the 
priest. “And Paul never told me?” she murmured. 

The old man shook his head sadly. 

“ T am ready! ’’ faltered the young Princess, after a 
pause. 


238 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR, 

“ Then, kneel and pray to your God — our God — the 
one God of Time and Eternity ! Him who was be- 
fore Time began ! There must, however, be a witness 
to the ceremony of baptism.” 

While Clara Zastrow knelt in prayer, the priest has- 
tened away. 

The young bride hardly lifted her head as a graceful 
woman silently followed Father Anastasius into the 
sacristy. 

When the brief ceremony of baptism was over, Clara 
Zastrow gazed in wonder upon that sweet, pale face — 
a face whose haunting, wistful eyes touched her heart 
with an infinite compassion. 

The priest, with a solemn dignity, then handed to the 
voung American her own passport, and rapidly trans- 
cribed a certificate of baptism. 

The mysterious White Lady had glided away, but 
through the open door Clara Zastrow could see the 
gentle stranger, kneeling there alone in the dim chapel. 

“ You will find a new name in the passport and cer- 
tificate, my daughter,” said the Father. “ Olga is a 
holy name to us, and it is the law that you must re- 
ceive one from the Greek Orthodox Church ! ” 
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-UBJJS XpUOJ 9qj p 3 J 9 qBJ Xjpiiup <1 UOISS9JUOD X]fl[ - 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 239 

■“ Yon will know each other as Marie and Olga, for 
this brief day, my daughters.” 

And Clara Zastrow started when she listened to the 
musical voice of the slender beauty, whose eyes were 
sadly fixed upon her child, now holding out its little 
arms to the pale mother, whose feet were seeking the 
Silent Land. 

At a sign, Kazia Petroffsky led the White Lady 
away — for a hectic crimson now burned upon the deli- 
cate woman’s wasted cheek. 

“ I shall speak only English to you,” said Anastasius, 
dropping the French which had been their only avail- 
able tongue in the constrained interview. 

“ You are now the Princess Zastrow, beyond all 
quibble of the law — no longer a mere defenseless wife, 
de facto; for, as your marriage was certified by the 
Russian Consul-General in New York, this ceremony 
of baptism, confirmation, confession, and communion 
enables me to make the legal entries in the register 
here! To-night, the Legation courier takes the original 
official certificates to Consul Obranovitch, and Serge 
Mohrendorf will send them on to his uncle. All this, 
after being spread upon the records of the Russian Em- 
bassy at Paris, will then be sent on to St. Petersburg. 
And now you are a legally vested Princess and — a pro- 
tected Russian subject! ” 

“ Strange man ! ” cried the American Princess. 
“ Why have you brought me here to tell me all this ? ” 

“ Because it is God’s work — because Ambassador 
Count Mohrendorf ordered me to protect you — and 
also for the sake of that dying woman and her father- 
less child ! ” 

“ Speak! ” cried Clara Zastrow, her whole soul now 
shining out in her gleaming eyes ! 

“ Listen to my story ! ” gravely said Anastasius. 
“ You have not yet sedn your husband’s mother? ” 

“ Paul told me that she was traveling in the Urals — 
that we would meet after his youthful folly had been 
pardoned ! ” whispered the Princess. 

“ I have been saying masses for the last two weeks 
beside dear Prascovie Zastrow’s coffin, where she lies 


240 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR, 

under the roses in the tomb at Fontainebleau ! ” sol- 
emnly said the priest. 

“ And — Paul knows this? ” almost shrieked the girl- 
bride. 

“ Pie knows it not, mv daughter 1 ” said Anastasius, 
supporting her tottering form. “ God has strangely 
chastised him ! And before you know all — before he 
knows anything of his just punishment — there is a sol- 
emn duty to be done here ! The Ambassador alone 
will communicate with Prince Paul Zastrow. Should 
any one prematurely warn him of aught of these hap- 
penings, then the Czar would simply erase him forever 
from the lists of our nobility! Only you can earn his 
pardon — only you, pure, innocent child of the church, 
can save him! ” 

And then, the burden of her husband’s shame de- 
scended upon the innocent wife, linked to him until 
death. 

It was a half an hour before Father Anastasius had 
finished a recital which left the Princess Olga Clara 
Zastrow doubly baptized with the chrism of a sorrow 
beyond words. 

“ Noble child — a Princess in every throb of her 
heart ! ” murmured Anastasius, as he left the room, 
quickly returning with a jewel casket and a sealed let- 
ter. 

“ Here is the last legacy of the noblest heart I ever 
knew ! ” cried Anastasius, his voice choked with sobs. 

Princess Zastrow gazed, bewildered, at the magnifi- 
cent jewels which met her gaze, as the priest reverently 
raised the lid of the casket. 

“ This, my daughter,” sadly said Father Petroffsky, 
“ is the last of the Princess Prascovie Zastrow’s wasted 
fortune. She leaves this wealth to the dying woman 
here — the witness of your new birth in Christ — to sup- 
port her, and — to make a small provision for that fath- 
erless babe! Onlv you must tell this lonely Marie of 
the death of your husband’s mother — that noble woman 
who sheltered me for years when a poor student at the 
Russian Embassy in London! For, if I give Marie 
this letter, there will be a motherless babe in this house 
to-night ! It is a woman's work — and — the Ambassa- 


THE SHIELD OF HTS HONOR. 241 

dor bade me lay the sad burden upon you, in God’s 
name ! ” 

The beautiful American sprang to her feet and 
groped wildly at some elusive vision, while her whole 
soul spoke out in one agonizing cry : 

“ Paul ! Paul ! ” 

And Father Anastasius bared his head in a silent 
assent as he sprang to grasp that tottering form. 

The secret of her husband’s eccentric actions was 
clear at last ! His innocent child was a living witness ! 

The stars were shining over Dresden, beaming down 
silently upon all the poor passion play of this weary 
world, when Marie Wraxine at last lifted her weary 
head ! 

For now she knew that Prascovie Zastrow would 
never fold her erring son to that loyal breast again. 

It had been a mercy of deceit, which simply told 
her of the sudden death of her only friend. 

The old priest had stilled Kazia’s wailing at last, 
and he now stood watching the two women whose hap- 
piness had been wrecked by Paul Zastrow’s brutal 
self-love. 

“ Paul ! Paul ! ” sobbed the deserted Marie Wrax- 
ine, “Where is the shield of your honor! Who will 
care for mv child?” 

With a glance as bright and terrible as the gaze of 
an avenging angel, Clara Zastrow laid her soft hand 
on Marie’s brow. 

“ Listen ! ” she whispered, in sweet, low accents 
which reached high Heaven. “ I am an American 
woman — childless, and rich ! Father Anastasius hears 
my vow! As God is my judge, I will care for your 
child ! He shall be nutured as princes are ! ” 

And then, with her trembling fingers clinging to the 
firm, white hand of her sister in sorrow, Marie Wrax- 
ine fell into the merciful eclipse of a shuddering swoon. 
The black eclipse of a husband’s shame had blotted 
out the light of the silver honeymoon forever ! 

There was no sound heard that night save the joy- 
ous babble of the rosy babe in the darkened house 
where Father Anastasius waited with the Princess Zas- 
trow for the carriage which was to bear her away. 


242 THE SHIELD OF K*S LDNOR. 

At the first rattle of the wheels, Clara stole in and 
kissed that white face, now grown so sacred to her in 
its unspeakable sorrow. She pressed the babe to her 
own virginal bosom and then knelt for Father Anasta- 
sius’s blessing. 

“ Go ! my daughter ! ” said the rapt old man. “ God 
in your heart ! Heaven in your soul ! ” 

And the American Princess left a blessing upon the 
house as she departed, for the happiness of a better 
world than this shone in her martyr eyes ! Her last 
glances rested upon the pale-faced beauty clasping to- 
iler breast that nameless child ! 

A week later, flushed with the wave of Life, secretly 
joying in a brilliant social success, the gay-hearted 
Prince Paul Zastrow leaped from his carriage in front 
of the Villa Amati. 

The great doors were thrown open to the man who 
had so easily achieved the mastery of millions with the 
glamour of his eyes and the honey of his tongue. The 
bridegroom was in a particularly buoyant mood, swim- 
ming now on the very top wave of fortune. 

For, he had treasured up in his breast the telegram 
from the victorious Director Alexandre Kalomine : 

“ Full papers will be mailed, in the Legation bag, 
to Paris next week. Have practically effected the 
whole transaction! Au revoir on the Neva.” The par- 
don gave him a new birth, the rebaptism into the Rus- 
sian aristocracy by dint of his wife’s millions. He saw 
himself now a shining star again ! 

“ Delightful ! ” murmured Prince Paul, as the solemn 
butler removed his master’s royal furs. “ This will 
give me first a little trip, solus, to Paris ! And — la 
belle Racowitza will be there ! I shall have a fortnight 
of dumb-show play with Mohrendorf over the little de- 
tails, and then — a grand diner de c^remonie will seal 
his tongue. The moment I get my pardon, I can send 
Schlitz away to hunt up my Lady Mother ! Schlitz is 
a sharp-nosed devil of a valet! And — I can quiet 
Madame Mere down after a bit of emotional drama ! 
Bah ! All women are the same ! The game is in my 
own hands at last ! ” He could see himself once more 
at the Winter Palace, a risen social star ! 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 243 

But, a sudden flush reddened Prince Zastrow’s 
cheeks as he saw his girl-wife, robed in the deepest 
black, standing silently awaiting him at the end of the 
great salle de reception! 

Strange to say, the Baron Serge Mohrendorf and the 
stolid Consul Obranovitch were also in the room, both 
rising formally at his approach ; while the Consul’s 
wife sat, with her eyes fixed upon the marble Niobe, 
who had stirred no step in welcome of her princely 
husband. Zastrow’s face darkened ! 

“ What means all this mummery? ” angrily cried the 
maddened Prince, as he sprang toward his wife. 

“ I am here,” coldly said the resolute Consul Obran- 
ovitch, “ to notify you, sir — with Baron Mohrendorf 
as my official witness — that your passport has been re- 
called by the Government, and canceled ! ” 

“ Bien oblige ! ” sneered Prince Paul, as he sprang 
aside and rang a silver gong with an angry clash. 
“The carriage of Monsieur!” he shouted — and then, 
the fires of hell shone out in his eyes as the two men 
rose and silently passed him, with a simple inclination 
of the head. 

Paul Zastrow started back as, on his approach to his 
silent bride, she recoiled a step. 

“ And you ? Are you mad, too ? ” he shouted, for- 
getting all prudence. 

“ Paul ! ” coldly said his American wife, “ before we 
go farther I wish to ask vou the storv of Marie Kri- 
lofif! ” 

“ So ! ” growled the young debauchee. “ They are 
juggling you with the history of that bit of light flesh ! 
It’s easy to see the bourgeois blood of Madame la Prin- 
cess Zastrow ! ” 

“You mistake, sir!” defiantly answered his wife. 
“ I am an American — not a Russian — Princess ! ” Do 
you know where that lady is ? ” 

“ I neither know nor care ! ” yelled Paul ; for he saw 
a golden fortune now slipping from his grasp. 

“ Who has worked this hell’s caldron up ? ” He 
gazed wrathfully at Madame Obranovitch. The lady’s 
glance was averted. 

“Will you care for Marie Wraxine’s child?” res- 


244 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

olutely demanded the Princess Clara, advancing upon 
her recreant husband with glowing eyes. 

“Let the brat find another protector !” sneered 
Paul, throwing himself wearily into a chair. 

“ It has found another one ! ” proudly said the wife, 
whose breaking heart was now buoyed up with a wom- 
an’s pity for the helpless babe. “ I will be its guardian, 
for the mother is dying! ” 

And then, Paul Zastrow cast aside the mask ! 

“ Good God ! Marie dying ! ” he faltered, as he 
buried his head in his hands. 

There was a horrid silence, until, in a strangely al- 
tered voice, the young wife said : 

“ Paul! Tell me, then, of your mother! Where is 
she? I will go to her ! She was a friend of this dying 
woman — and she has provided until now for this fath- 
erless child ! ” 

Paul Zastrow leaped up, his face whitened to ashes. 

“ I know not ! ” he growled. “ Lurking around 
Dresden somewhere, I suppose! She has perhaps 
poisoned your mind against me ! She is a soft-heart- 
ed fool !” 

“ Paul ! Paul ! ” sobbed his wife, her heart melted 
with an unspeakable anguish. She forgot all the Am- 
bassador’s injunctions in her yearning sorrow. “ Two 
weeks ago, the Princess Prascovie Zastrow was laid 
away in her tomb at Fontainebleau! She died in the 
Russian Embassy, and, Count Mohrendorf ” 

But then, with a wild glance at Madame Obrano- 
vitch, Paul Zastrow threw up his hands and rushed, in 
a frenzy of despair, from the room ! 

In vain the Consul and Baron Serge, watching in 
the corridor, strove to detain the seeming madman ! 

It was only the watchful servants who followed their 
master out into the gloom of the dying day, while the 
two men sadly returned to the drawing-room. And, 
then, as her guilty husband fled, Clara Zastrow fell 
senseless in a deathlike swoon! 

There were flitting lights around the Villa Amati all 
the livelong night, for the young bride struggled long 
between life and death. 

The hastily summoned physicians gazed blankly at 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


245 


each other, for the honeymoon had ended in an un- 
dertone of tragedy ! 

When the day broke, Prince Paul Zastrow still sat 
alone in a room in the Casino. 

His face was flushed with drink as he muttered: 

Kinsky’s evidence must yet turn the scale ! This 
girl’s money shall buy my pardon ! I will go to Paris ! 

Mohrendorf must aid me! As for Clara Bah! 

She is only a child ! I can manage her easily. My 
Lady Tiger Cat has claws, it seems ! Never mind — 
when I get her to Russia, and her money in my grasp, 
she shall cool that hot temper on the icy Neva! Our 
dames are no frozen prudes, and I shall ride over my 
enemies on golden wheels ! Fll get away to Paris ! 
The Racowitza is there already! Schlitz can follow on 
with my luggage ! ” 

He murmured a few directions to his watching valet, 
and then drained the brandy bottle ; for, all the long 
night the coward had fled the echoes of the voice of 
his dying mother, the fondly loyal woman whom he had 
denied. He could hear her still crying “ Paul! Paul! ” 


CHAPTER XIV. 

“ JE m’ EN VAIS ! ” 

While all the golden swim of Nice wondered at the 
absence of the Prince and Princess Zastrow from the 
Grand Bal d’Hiver. the husband and wife were already 
separated by a gulf deeper than the sea. 

Even on the Riviera, there is a shadowy “ Mrs. 
Grundy,” and much marveled the Golden Horde, that 
the Prince Paul Zastrow was absent from the Villa 
Amati, when his girl-bride was known to be hovering 
between life and death. 

The vanished husband was replaced a week later by 
the sunken-eyed Father Anastasius Petroffsky, whose 
cadaverous face put to flight the resolute old Princess 
Crayekowski, who had determined to solve the mys- 
tery of the interrupted honeymoon. 


246 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

But. at the lodge gates, the butler courteously an- 
swered all inquiry, and received the avalanche of flow- 
ers and cartes de condolence. 

He parried the questions of all curious intermed- 
dlers with the blunt sangfroid of a Sergeant of Sap- 
pers. 

It was, after all, “ an ill wind that blew nobody 
good ! ” 

For, the Marchesa Della Torre and Count 
Schweidnitz, of the Austrian Chevaliers (dTndustrie), 
led the cotillon instead of “ la belle Americaine,” and 
the stately Serge Mohrendorf. 

Time waits for neither man nor maid at Nice, “ en 
saison ” ; and so, the merry-go-round went on gayly 1 
Vogue la galere ! 

It is true there had been curious murmurs as to the 
disappearance from the Vesuvian bay of a beautiful or- 
ange girl, in the past years, but too familiar to the offi- 
cers of the foreign fleets at Naples, a willful beauty who 
was last seen with Prince Porlonia, an Italian Croesus, 
and, “ headed northward.” 

But, as Madame la Marchesa was duly vouched for 
by the Italian Consul fPorlonia’s banking agent at 
Nice), the Marchesa was accepted on faith, and the co- 
tillon was vowed a success. 

Not even the boldest dared to question Consul 
Alexis Obranovitch, or his sad-eved wife, for this 
grave matrimonial pair seemed to have mounted guard 
over the Villa Amati, where a dozen gens d’armes now 
walked the bounds, to insure silence. 

And even the vivacious French physicians admitted 
that no one knew aught of the social cataclysm save 
the four Russian Sisters, nurses of the sickroom, 
brought by the stern-eyed priest from Dresden. And 
these warv Muscovites merely watched their invalid, 
and told their beads — and — nothing more ! 

It is true that the promotion of Baron Serge Moh- 
rendorf to be First Secretary of the Russian Embassy 
at Paris, fully accounted for his own disappearance, the 
orders of the White Czar not admitting of delays, 
“ pour prendre conge.” 

And so, the handsome, frank-faced Mohrendorf was 


THE Smitt/D OF n IS HONOR. 


247 


gone, and as for the ladies, who knew him to be the 
sole heir of one of the richest of the old Russian nobles, 
H ‘ Aye, they loot the tear doun fa’, for Jock o’ Hazel- 
dean ! ” 

And as, providentially, at this time, a “ duel sang- 
lante ” occurred between two amatory married cava- 
liers, the Baron de Slickwitz and the Count de Gobe- 
mouche, all society now turned and fell upon that de- 
mure little sinner, Ma’amselle Fifi Chiffon, a premiere 
of the grand opera ballet, who was the tempting prey 
of these rival social lions. 

Only on one point were the warring married beau- 
ties of Nice agreed — viz., the uselessness of these so- 
cial desperadoes straying so far frorn the well-stocked 
game preserves of the salons. And the social drama 
of the Villa Amati was soon forgotten in the mad rush 
of Pleasure! 

It was only Pauline, the lustrous-eved Parisian 
maid, who was the quartermaster-general of Princess 
Zastrow’s toilettes, who could have solved the mystery. 

For had not Schlitz, the bodvservant and Leporello 
of Don Juan Zastrow, written her a letter from Paris 
which knitted even closer the bonds linking the hearts 
of the adroit valet and tha rapacious soubrette. 

“ There is something in this, for Adolph and I,” 
smiled Pauline, as she read the story of the voyage to 
Paris. 

Only Pauline knew that the Prince Zastrow had 
waited impatiently at the Grand Hotel Louvre, at Mar- 
seilles, for the arrival of his sly German valet, with all 
the luggage needed for a brilliant Parisian entree. 

“ Ciel ! ” sneered Pauline, who proposed now to 
make a joint purse with Adolph Schlitz. “ They are 
a queer couple. I thought that the Prince and Baron 
Serge were going away to fight a duel over the three 
days’ disappearance of mv golden-haired mistress ! 
Bah! Les hommes sout tous infideles! Here is my 
young master hidden away at the Hotel Choiseul, in 
Paris, and — very strangely — la belle Racowitza also 
appears at the same place ! He is surely crazy — stark- 
crazy — like all Russian princes ! Tiens ! Adolph will 
watch him ! But — my proud mistress ! Where did 


248 TIIF. SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

she hide herself away those three days? If I could 
only find out, then I would be her ruler — just as surely 
as Adolph now controls the wild young master! A 
pretty Prince — a pretty Princess ! ” 

But, although the vivacious soubrette stole away 
that night to grace a petit diner with Monsieur An- 
toine, the rich wine merchant, she never knew the se- 
cret of that flying trip via Mont Cenis! 

And yet, the pale woman lying in the darkened room 
in the Villa Amati knew now that she had lived and 
loved — that her idol had been thrown down from its 
pedestal. 

It was two long weeks before she was well enough to 
read the autograph letters of His Excellency Count 
Mohrendorf! The anxious words of the old Ambas- 
sador were few, but they touched the orphan Princess’s 
heart. 

For, Mohrendorf frankly owned to the sending of 
Father Anastasius to watch over her, and promised 
that the Consul and his wife should shield her. 

“ It may be necessary, my dear Princess,” wrote 
Count Ivan, “ that you should seek the shelter of this 
Embassy to protect your legal rights. I am in daily 
communication — or rather conflict — with your hus- 
band, who seems to have lost all his mental self-con- 
trol. I have withheld his passport, while yours has 
been already fully registered in St. Petersburg; and 
you will receive all the honors and protection due to 
your rank ! You are free to go to Russia ; you are en- 
titled to a speedy presentation at Court — and — alas, 
your husband is not ! Pray be guided by Father An- 
astasius ; and you will regularly receive my letters and 
telegrams through Consul Obranovitch. I have the 
official control of Prince Paul’s status while he is a 
denizen of France ; and, I venture to say, that, after 
you have made a second sad journey to Dresden, that 
I advise you then to close up the Villa Amati and come 
to Paris, where you may choose a dignified home. 
My honor and the orders of the Czar prevent me telling 
you all ! Prince Paul is here, scheming with a desper- 
ate cabal, who are the sycophants of one Grand Duke 
whom I will not name ! But, I have the Emperor’s 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 249 

own orders to countenance and protect you ; if neces- 
sary, I will come to Nice and escort you to Paris — 
myself — with Madame Obranovitch. I counsel you 
for the present to shun all fashionable society! Serge 
has told me all! With one or two exceptions, your 
entourage is not worthy of your present rank, or your 
own noble nature.” 

Two weeks later, the Princess Zastrow was seated 
alone in her drawing-room, gazing out upon the leaden 
sea, upon whose lonely waste she now saw no silver sail 
freighted with new hopes ! 

She shuddered to think of all the sorrows that the 
dying year had brought to her ! 

There was no denying the mad recklessness \yhich 
had seized upon the recreant Prince Paul ! 

Clara Zastrow knew nothing of the warfare a l’out- 
rance, now carried on between a clan headed by the 
Grand Duke Anatole, backed by the Necker syndi- 
cate, Director Kalomine, and the mad young de- 
bauchee, with the stern-eyed Ambassador at Paris, se- 
cretly upheld by Monsieur de Giers, and, acting under 
the orders of the manly Czar, doomed so soon to lay 
down his weary head upon an early death-bed. 

Some malicious hand had been busied with her af- 
fairs since her husband’s departure. 

For, clippings of Parisian journals duly falling in 
by mail, “ thick as leaves in Yallombrosa,” told of the 
wild social career of Prince Paul Zastrow. 

From the Jockey Club to the coulisses, from the 
gilded orgies of the gambling clubs and degenerate 
restaurants, to the dueling ground, the “ mad Rus- 
sian ” was trailing his baleful way — a meteor on the 
midnight blackness of the wintry Parisian sky. 

And, strange to say, the reckless husband had made 
the mistake of his life in trying to bully his American 
wife! 

For his drafts were all promptly dishonored by the 
Princess Clara’s bankers; and the Parisian usurers — 
lending at forty per cent, and a commission— began to 
tremble for their profits. 

But, money or no money, la Racowitza daily rode 


250 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

gayly on the honor seat of Prince Paul’s four-in-hand, 
and a wild clientele had gathered around him. 

The reckless Paul Zastrow found that he had en- 
countered a sterner nature than his own, and he 
growled in surprise when he gazed on the protested 
drafts. 

“ Only in Russia can I conquer her ; but, by Heav- 
en, I will soon frighten her into coming here! Then, I 
can get money on her credit! She will pay, — sooner 
or later! ” 

Father Anastasius gazed upon the deserted young 
wife with an infinite pity on the day when he handed 
her a short telegram from Dresden. 

It was sadly pathetic in its. brevity. 

And Clara Zastrow’s beautiful blue eyes were filled 
with tears as she read the simple words — 

“ Je m’ en vais! Marie.” 

“ Send for the Consul ! ” resolutely said Paul Zas- 
trow’s heart-broken wife. “ I will be ready to leave 
in an hour ! We must have a special train. This side 
of Life, at least, is real — sickness, sorrow, sin, and the 
shadow of Death — even if Love be but a poor sham — 
fool’s gold — the deadly mirage of Life’s desert ! ” 

The Legation courier was galloping into Nice before 
Pauline was busied with Madame Zastrow’s simple 
traveling outfit. 

“ Black — only black ! ” sternly said the Princess 
Clara, as Pauline held up some dazzling Worth finery. 

“And, I accompany Madame? ” stealthily queeried 
the soubrette. 

At last, the secret was to be a sweet morsel for future 
golden hours of pecuniary nibbling. 

“ I will take only the Sisters with me ! You will re- 
main here — subject to Consul Obranovitch in every 
way ! ” said the mistress, eyeing her closely. 

The Frenchwoman’s face faded into a slaty hue of 
speechless rage ; but, en revanche, there remained per- 
haps a week of quiet flirtations with Monsieur Antoine, 
and, little by little, Pauline was making her golden 
nest. 

When the party had departed, Pauline Duprez burst 
into a storm of tears, as Madame Obranovitch’s sturdy 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 251 

housekeeper installed herself in charge of the Villa 
during the absence of the Princess. 

“And so, Monsieur le Consul will sleep here? ” 
snarled Pauline. 

“ Sans doute ! ” calmly said the robust bourgeois. 
“ He is responsible for all to your mistress now ! ” 

And so, Pauline Duprez knew nothing of the race 
against Death ; for, swift as the whirring wheels of the 
train were, the grim destroyer stood ready at Dresden, 
whetting his scythe to cut the silver cord of Marie 
Wraxine’s days. 

The disappointed soubrette’s only revenge was to 
extract a long-treasured hundred-franc note from the 
miserly old Princess Crayekowski in return for the 
meager information that the American Princess “ had 
fled to parts unknown.” 

But the Crayekowski gnashed her yellowed teeth 
later, when she discovered that Madame Obranovitch, 
the strange Russian priest, and four Muscovite Sisters 
were all partners of that strange hegira. 

“All the Americans are crazy — and, some of the 
Russians ! ” sagely decided the baflled Princess Craye- 
kowski, as she returned to her cherished baccarat, hav- 
ing worn out every other human wickedness in the 
world, save lying ! 

And now, a past mistress of that most time-honored 
art, she recouped herself for her money thrown away, 
by inventing foul tales about the American Princess, 
which were duly wafted bv the children of Belial from 
Paris to St. Petersburg. It was a grim welcome to 
Russian society! 

On this very day of the second departure for- Dres- 
den, Prince Paul Zastrow, fierce and red-eyed, sullenly 
obeyed an official order to present himself at the Rus- 
sian Embassy. 

There was a “ tir au pigeons ” at Asnieres, and la 
Racowitza had bidden him to a petit dejeuner a quatre, 
with a debauched royalty visiting Paris incognito, and 
a queenly Italian diva, a glittering Delilah at whose 
feet many princes sued — an endless chain of fools ! 

But the stern directress of Count Ivan Mohren- 
dorf’s personal letter was backed up by the presence 


252 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

of a very determined-looking attache — a new impor- 
tation from Krim Tartary, sent on to Paris for a ju- 
dicious social “ frottement.” 

With a pardonable discretion, the reckless Paul 
dressed himself, en “ toilet de duel,” and suddenly en- 
tered the Count’s private cabinet, gracefully courteous 
and gravely defiant. 

There was a frosty glare in the old Ambassador’s 
eyes when Prince Paul, bowing stiffly, referred to the 
presence of the Baron Serge Mohrendorf. “ You are 
here, mon Prince, to face a very grave issue ! Be 
pleased to drop your useless bravado! ” coldly said the 
Ambassador. 

“You have vainly demanded of me the location of 
the resting-place of your sainted mother — la Princesse 
Prascovie Zastrow ! ” continued the Count, while 
Serge Mohrendorf fixed a steady eye upon the prod- 
'gal. 

“ Too late — all too late ! I have learned by the con- 
fession of my rascal Baptiste that vour denial of this 
noble woman, the mother who loved you, broke h^r 
heart ! She died in mv arms — here — in this very 
room ! ” 

Prince Paul sprang to his feet, livid in a deadly rage ; 
but the old man’s sternly pointing finger quelled him. 

“ You would have hoodwinked vour golden-hearted 
American wife until you could have covered up your 
past crimes ! ” 

Suddenly, Paul’s eyes rested upon Serge Mohren- 
dorf, with a ferocious delight. 

“ It’s a damnable lie, you old dotard ! ” he hissed. 
“ Plere is one of your blood t'o answer me ! ” 

“ Stop ! Serge ! ” cried Count Ivan, in a voice of 
thunder. “ I will not let my heir, the son of my heart, 
fight with a criminal fugitive, an alleged thief, a se- 
ducer, and a notorious blackguard ! ” 

He rang a bell with violence. 

A resolute secretary appeared. 

“ Bid the police await my call in the anteroom! 
Gregor!” quietly said the Count. “Ask the Second 
Secretary to be ready to go to the Bureau de Police 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 253 

and give a criminal in charge! You may arm your- 
self also, and wait there, without.” 

The old soldier was not to be dismayed by the young 
bully’s blustering. 

Paul Zastrow had retreated into a corner, his hand 
straying into his bosom. 

“ Drop that hand ! ” rang out Serge’s command, as 
cold as steel. “ If you move, I will shoot you down ! ” 

“ Now, listen ! ” slowly said Count Ivan, in a voice 
which froze the marrow of Zastrow’s bones. “ I have 
a dispatch that the General Baron Michel Wraxine 
died three days ago. He died crazy, in an asylum at 
Kief! This is morally your second murder, one exe- 
cuted with all the crafty self-protection of a fiend. But 
it gives you, now, the opportunity to legally recognize 
and adopt your own child! General Wraxine’s death 
lifts the ban! The mother is dying — how, or where, it 
matters not to you! Your destiny is in your own 
hands! Will you adopt this child — the son of Marie 
Kriloff? The law enables you to give it your name! I 
will give you five minutes to reflect! 

And then, with a quick motion. Count Ivan threw 
open the door, admitting the fierce-looking attache 
whose fighting exterior had cowed Zastrow’s nerve — 
at last weakened by absinthe and midnight debauchery. 

There was a ghastly silence as Count Mohrendorf 
gazed at the repeater which had rung the hour of the 
assault on the Grivitzka redoubt. 

At a mute signal, the stranger retired, and Mohren- 
dorf, hollow-voiced, muttered: 

“Your answer, sir!” 

“A thousand times, NO! ” yelled Paul Zastrow. “ It 
is a conspiracy to defeat my legal reinstatement ! ” 

The crafty scoundrel thought, buoyed up with false 
hopes of Kalomine’s last letter — resting now on his 
bosom : “ For one hundred thousand roubles more I 

can carry the day ! ” 

And, the desperate man had gone, in despair, to the 
usurers, mortgaging to them his entire marital claims. 

The money had been telegraphed on already to Kal- 
omine. 

** I must kill this fellow Serge — he has betrayed me," 


254 the shield of his honor. 

mused Paul ; “ and the Grand Duke must help me 
now. As for la belle Americaine — she will now pay 
the half of her fortune to get rid of me. She has 
bought her title cheaply ! ” 

Ivan Mohrendorf read these murderous thoughts in 
the villain’s stormy face. 

“ Be it so! You have sealed your doom! I shall 
now send Baron Serge Mohrendorf on to the Neva to 
acquaint Monsieur de Giers with this whole affair! The 
Baron goes under an escort. Dare to approach him and 
— you will be. shot down like a mad wolf. You are not 
to darken this door again ! If you do, I will give my 
servants orders to eject you ! I will see that the poor 
orphan whom you tricked into a cruel marriage never 
brings her money to the Continent, to be reduced to 
vour thievish possession ! I now give you my orders. 
See that you obey them ! You are to stay in Paris, 
under the surveillance of the secret police, until the 
Emperor gives his final answer as to my actions ! 
Dare but to try to leave this city, and you will be 
dragged off to La Force ! As for your personal move- 
ments, you may wallow as you will ! And now, I tell 
you that I throw the mantle of secrecy over your 
mother’s tomb! You will never find it! She was 
buried under another name! As to your passport, here 
it is, sent back officially canceled! ” 

With a nervous energy, the Ambassador tore the re- 
turned document into tatters, and then contemptuous- 
ly tossed the fragments into the blazing fire of vine- 
roots. 

“ Go, sir ! The first Russian agent who dares to give 
you a passport will end his days a slave in Siberia ! As 
for your loyal wife, dare but to approach her in anger, 
and you will quickly wear a felon’s load of chains. 
She is under my protection — my ward by the order of 
the Czar ! ” 

The old noble threw wide open the door of his cab- 
inet, sternly calling in the police. He pointed to the 
cowering Zastrow. And the two attaches listened as 
the old man’s voice rang out in solemn tones, as grave 
as a death sentence : 

“ Messieurs ! ” he said. “ Look to him — swindler, 




THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 255 

braggart, would-be duelist, disgraced fugitive, pro- 
scribed Russian, degraded noble, and — a criminal de- 
serter! He is not to leave Paris, and — when I wish 
him arrested, I will notify the Commissaire! Do not 
lose him from sight ! ” 

The agents de police bowed in silence, and their lead- 
er roughly shook up Paul Zastrow’s arm. 

“ Filez-tout droite ! ” he growled, as the disgraced 
adventurer slunk out of the open door, with an im- 
passive gendarme at either side. 

In an hour, .Serge Mohrendorf was on his way to 
Dresden direct, while Paul Zastrow, a raging hell in his 
heart, learned that two men, in plain clothes, followed 
his every movement, their eyes glued upon his form, 
where the bowed shoulders already showed the weight 
of disgrace and shame. They only waited to arrest him 
and drag him away. 

And yet, in the society of la Racowitza, he forgot 
that he was now under the ban — a mere human wolf. 

In far-away Dresden, Kazia Petroffsky sat, awed 
into a chastened silence, by the bed whereon the beau- 
tiful Marie Kriloff lay suffering in silence, her thin, 
white hand plucking at the coverlid ! 

Ah! Never on those pale lips would a happy smile 
play again; there was only a gleam in the wistful dark 
eyes when, through the open door, the carol of the child 
could be heard. 

And, as the long hours drifted away, the good 
housewife knew the silent question of those sadly shin- 
ing eyes, feebly turned toward the window ! 

“ Would they never come? ” 

For, already, in the corners of the room, there was a 
gathering gloom — a thrilling silence— and wander- 
ing airs of heaven stole in, as if some invisible pres- 
ence lingered around the bed of pain ! 

The White Lady was fast drifting away to the echo- 
less shore. 

And, even the stolid, watchful German physician 
paused without the sick-room, on his departure, to 
sadly shake his bearded head and brush away a tear. 

“ It is the murder of the soul — this sad life ending.” 
muttered Dr. Oberweiler — for he had divined the Sor- 


256 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

rows crown of sorrows in the presence of that prattling 
babe, and the agonized cry : “ Paul ! Paul ! Come 

to me ! Come to me but once — only once again ! My 
God — to leave my child alone in this dark world ! ” It 
was a loving woman’s ultimate martyrdom ! 

The snows were gayiv sparkling in their silver sheen 
and mantling the blackened slate roofs of the Altstadt, 
when the good Anastasius left the Princess Clara at 
the F.uropaischer Hof, in Dresden. 

It was near midnight when Doctor Hugo Ober- 
weiler had finished his confidential report. 

“ Simply a broken heart,” he concluded. “ Arme 
Engelschon frau ! There is nothing left for my art 
now ! It is for you, Herr Pastor, to soothe the parting 
hour! Only, if you wish her to live a few wretched 
hours longer, let there be no shock! And, above all, 
do not take the child away from her ! ” 

Doctor Oberweiler kindly drew the young Princess 
aside. 

Both of them were ignorant of the whole heart his- 
tory of the dying Marie — and yet, the veteran physi- 
cian and the young millionairess saw that the prat- 
tling babe was at once the enigma and its solution. 

“ Send the priest and the Sisters up with the cou- 
rier ! ” said the Doctor. “ I will be at her bedside 
early in the morning! And, she shall have a mercy 
sleep of a few hours ! When she wakes, let her find 
only your bright face by her bedside — and then — stay 
with her to the last ! Remember — keep the child with 
her; it is the last tie that binds the fluttering soul! 
And, as to Madame Obranovitch, let her remain in 
quiet with the priest’s wife ! No new faces ! It would 
only alarm her ! ” 

It was two o’clock on the morrow when Marie Wrax- 
ine awoke to see the loving face of the Princess Zas- 
trow shining down upon her ! 

The White Lady gave a gentle sigh, and then, her 
feeble hand sought the grasp of her younger sister in 
sorrow. 

The beautiful dark eyes melted in a glow of tender- 
ness, for before her, stood Anastasius PetrofTsky, hold- 
ing the rosy babe in his protecting arms. 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 257 

The dying woman strove to speak, but a hand, light 
as a roseleaf, pressed her brow, and Clara Zastrow’s 
lips kissed into silence the murmurs of the feeble moth- 
er, struggling there with Azrael. 

The long hours wore slowly away ; the darkling 
shadows fell upon tower and dome, hiding the cruel 
stone-fanged streets, and mantling the peasant’s hut, 
the burgher’s happy home, and the glittering halls of 
the children of the Golden Calf. 

A calm-faced Sister silently moved around the sick- 
room, whenever Marie Wraxine stirred, and the stead- 
fast Princess Zastrow sat there in a reclining chair, 
casting up the accounts of the dying year ! 

She knew nothing save that the Legation courier 
was sending hourly telegrams to Paris, and silently 
bringing the Count Mohrendorf’s answers to Father 
Anastasius, a watcher as true to his trust as the Ro- 
man sentinel who died before the gate of P.ompeii. 

At last, she realized the fatal precipitancy with which 
she had hurled herself out of her own beloved land into 
another social world, at the beck of an insidious Prince 
Charming! A brief, lovelit dream — a sad awakening 
— a self-immolation — for the hollow honors of a title. 

Gazing at the pale, proud face of the sufferer, she 
wondered in what subtle mesh of lying promises she 
had been entangled ! 

“ Alas ! Poor Marie ! ” sighed the American Prin- 
cess. “ If you have shared the sweetness of the dar- 
ling sin, the bitterness of the cup is yours alone ! The 
Woman’s Kingdom of the blasted life and the broken 
heart ! ” 

And herself! She had passed the parting of the 
ways ! She stood now alone, a stranger in a strange 
land ! 

Lightly laden with barren honors, as yet, an alien to 
Russia — and — expatriated from America! 

The snares and pitfalls of international marriage now 
rose up before her ! 

Paul ! Her reckless husband ! 

She shuddered and put her hands before her eyes, 
to hide his haunting image ! 

For, whatever tie had bound him to the dying 


258 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

woman, lying there but faintly breathing now, linger- 
ing reluctant on death’s threshold, she knew for a truth 
that her reckless husband had meanly denied his noble- 
hearted mother, only to get a quick control of his 
bride’s wealth to minister to his headlong thirst of 
every degraded pleasure ! 

Forgetting that the fortune-hunters of her own na- 
tion might have trapped her even in her own land, she 
looked at man as her typical foe ! 

And yet, one generous impulse thrilled her heart ! 
The courtly old Ambassador seemed familiar to her 
already in Baron Serge’s faithful descriptions. 

His letters breathed a fatherly tenderness, and he 
had known and loved her husband’s golden-hearted 
mother — the woman who had opened her arms to this 
repentant Marie and this helpless child ! 

There was the sacred deposit of jewels for which 
the Princess Clara had already deposited their full price 
with Father Ar.astasius as a fund to assuage the suffer- 
ings of the mother and provide for the prattling babe. 
The last offerings of a noble heart! 

Surely this old Count Mohrendorf must be a man 
among men, for he had solemnly warned her to pay 
for none of her husband’s dissolute orgies, and had di- 
rected her not to bring any of her funds to Europe to 
be reduced to the possession of her spendthrift lord 
and master. 

The prompt and delicate protection of her rank and 
married rights touched her lonely heart. 

And she could not deny the manly and broad-mind- 
ed loyalty of the Baron Serge ! 

For, while the stalwart young noble had carefully 
instructed her as to her rights, he had chivalrously re- 
frained from lifting the veil clouding Paul Zastrow’s 
past ! And yet, he had been as manly and inflexible in 
her defense as a brother of the blood ! 

Oppressed with her mournful introspection, Clara 
Zastrow stole out into the room where Father Anas- 
tasius sat reading, in a low whisper, the pravers for 
the dying. 

In an agony of unrest, she begged for immediate 
counsel ! 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 259 

“ Wait, my daughter,” he solemnly said. “ God will 
lead — and you are walking in the right path ! Baron 
Serge comes here to superintend the sad formalities, 
and I am to conduct you then to Paris, where the Am- 
bassador will both guide and guard you ! ” 

And so, comforted at heart, the American Princess 
went back to her vigil of love. 

On this very night, his nature sunk in a nervous de- 
spair, the disgraced Prince Paul Zastrow moodily sat 
in a dark corner of la Racowitza’s drawing-room in 
Paris. 

Though the open door of the salle-a-manger he 
could hear the laughter of wanton women, the clink of 
yellow gold, the hoarse voices of the players, and the 
odor of wine and crushed roses hung heavy in this 
modern Phrvne’s bower. 

It was truly a “ mauvais quart d’heure ! ” 

For, Paul knew now of the resolute daily hound- 
ing of the two men in black ! 

With a bitter sneer, he realized at last that only the 
murky atmosphere of the declasse was open to him 
now ! A genuine fear possessed him. for the brave old 
Ambassador’s fiery courage had broken his nerve ! 

His warring soul was filled with a stormy rage. 

Only one memory he dared not face ! His mother, 
loyal, brave-hearted, and true ! 

“ Dame ! ” he cried, “ I should have told her all ! I 
believe that she loved me ! But, no — there was Marie 
hovering ever between us ! And so, that old wolf 
Wraxine is dead! Tant mieux! It clears the field! 
But, the story of Marie — and this child ! Who the 
devil could have told my stubborn American wife ! My 
mother? No ! She never saw even Clara’s face ! Some 
enemy — perhaps some woman who angrily remembers 
an old amourette ! They are all the same — these 
women ! Here’s the Racowitza ! Once that she 
knows I am penniless, she will turn me into the 
street ! ” 

Pie drained a glass of brandy before two ideas 
emerged from the chaos of his mind ! “ Kalomine must 
help me, or else, I will have to betray them all ! Can it 
be that the Grand Duke Anatole has failed! And the 


26 o 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


last — the sweetest draught of revenge! When I have 
ruined Kalomine, unless he keeps his faith, I will way- 
lay this Serge Mohrendorf, and force him to fight me — 
yes, by Heavens! a duel a l’Americaine, in the very 
streets! He is rashly brave, and — I have my Western 
armes de chasse! It will break old Mohrendorf’s heart, 
and one that Serge is killed, I will easily tame this 
Western tiger-cat — later, when Serge is dead ! ” 

In an hour, Paul Zastrow's voice rang out again, 
high above the bacchanalian chorus, and he was in a 
reckless mood that night when the Racowitza begged 
for the “ riviere ” of diamonds which she had so greatly 
admired in the Palais Royal that day ! 

Blind and foolish was the wine-maddened Samson 
who strained the Magyar Delilah to his breast as he 
consented ! He little knew that the crafty valet, the 
smug Adolph Schlitz, was pocketing his own comfort- 
able commissions from the wild Magyar for each suc- 
cessive robbery of their victim. 

And, though the usurers loudly protested the next 
day, they finally cashed Prince Paul’s draft for one hun- 
dred thousand francs upon the Baron Alexandre Kalo- 
mine, Director-General of the Imperial Bank of St. Pe- 
tersburg. 

“ He will have an abundance,” gloated the Jews, 
“ when he rejoins the millionaire bride at Nice — and — 
then, we shall shave him — to the bone! ” 

And y^t, the Sons of Israel would have groaned in 
terror had they known that Paul Zastrow had deliber- 
ately forged the letter of Kalomine authorizing the 
draft, at twenty days. 

But, la Racowitza laughed in her lover’s arms that 
night as he clasped the riviere ” of brilliants upon her 
ivory neck, and Paul muttered : “ Sixty thousand for 

this, leaves me still forty thousand to suffice until Clara 
surrenders, or else she settles! Perhaps she will buy 
her ‘ liberty,’ for she is a Princess, ‘ quand meme.’ ” 
There was a little rift of sunlight in the gray, wintry 
morning clouds hovering over Dresden when Kazia 
Petroffsky, wild-eyed, awoke the Princess Clara Zas- 
trow from a troubled sleep. 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 26 1 

Words were useless ! The priest’s wife brought the 
fatal message in her despairing glances. 

And, in an instant, awed by the presence of death, 
the deserted wife knelt by the bedside of the deserted 
partner of Paul Zastrow’s dastardly flight from Odessa. 

Grave-faced Doctor Hugo Oberweiler, at the head 
of the bed, stood apparently as sternly composed as 
when he walked among his wounded while the French 
shells shrieked over the field hospital in the charnel of 
Gravelotte. 

But, his eyes were filled with unbidden tears. 

The American* girl never noticed that the windows 
were all opened, and the cool morning air filled the 
room. 

Through the open door, Clara could hear the sob- 
bing of Helene Obranovitch, who had shared the vigils 
of the last night. 

And now, a divine compassion was reflected in An- 
astasius Petroffsky’s eyes, when he raised the cross be- 
fore the dying woman’s eyes. 

The young wife leaned over the sufferer, whose 
trembling lips were struggling with the still beloved 
name ! 

And, at last, Clara’s quick ear caught the faltered 
accents : “ Little Paul ! ” 

Swift as the rush of angel’s wings, the American 
Princess sped away upon her loving errand. 

And, when Marie Wraxine opened her fast-glazing 
eyes for the last time, she saw that stranger sister stand- 
ing there before her, with the child clasped in her shel- 
tering arms. 

“Je m’ en vais ! ” faltered the lustrous-eyed Marie. 
“ C’en est fini ! Mon fils — le pauvre Paul Zastrow ! ” 

“ Mine forever,” cried Clara, as she strained the 
child to her bosom. “ He shall be a prince among men 
— my own — mv very own ! *’ 

And* then, Kazia Petroffskv stole away the helpless 
burden as the voung wife caught Marie Wraxine’s 
hands, now chilling with death’s approach! 

A smile not of this world lit up the dying woman’s 
face as, with a last supreme effort, she clasped her 


262 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


guardian angel’s neck within the circle of her helpless, 
arms ! 

“ Dien vous benisse ! ” came softly from the pallid 
lips, and when they laid the tired head back upon the 
pillow there was a gentle sigh — one quick gasp — and 
beautiful Marie Wraxine’s eyes, glazed in death, fondly 
fixed themselves in unutterable tenderness upon the 
woman who had taken upon herself the sacred burden 
of motherhood. 

It' was the veteran Oberweiler who led Clara Zas- 
trow away into the room where Kazia Petroffsky clung 
to the babe as if the mother’s call might rob them of 
her hostage to the Goddess of Sorrows ! 

And, when the old German Doctor laid the wreath of 
white roses upon the wasted bosom of the White Lady, 
the praying nuns had crossed those nerveless hands in 
peace upon the loving but pulseless heart ! 

“ All is gone of her burden of pain and sorrow,” mut- 
tered the physician. “ Let there be only love and peace 
around her fatherless child — the monument of her de- 
votion — her legacy! For, this was one of the finer 
souls — true beyond the world’s false laws — and now 
resting in the fathomless mercy of God ! ” 


CHAPTER XV. 

PAYING THE PRICE. 

Two days after the death of the unhappy Marie 
Wraxine, the Princess Zastrow sat in the priest’s little 
“ best room,” listening mechanically to the few words 
of Baron Serge Mohrendorf’s message. 

Father Anastasius, his sad eyes lit up with an affec- 
tionate interest, leaned forward in his great armchair. 

The American Princess was keenly intent upon the 
young secretary’s words, and yet, her head turned 
toward the next room whenever the chirping voice of 
little Paul was heard. 

“ I have now fulfilled my uncle’s imperative orders, 
and shall hasten on, by Rovno, direct to St. Peters- 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 263 

burg ! Poor Marie rests in the vault here until you 
may confer with my uncle. Father Anastasius has my 
uncle’s telegrams to guide him — the duplicate of my 
own. 1 would advise you to go at once to Paris with 
Madame Obranovitch. Father Anastasius and the 
child will be needed there also. One of the Russian 
Sisters will go with you, as the legal custody of this 
helpless babe is now in the priest only. Then, trust to 
my uncle’s wisdom for your course ! ” 

“ My establishment at Nice! ” murmured the Prin- 
cess. 

“ It will still th6 voice of scandal if you allow Consul 
Obranovitch to pay off the servants and simply ap- 
point a carekeeper. You can telegraph Obranovitch 
to send on your maid with your own luggage ; and 
bring the butler, too, on to Paris. If you choose, you 
can drop the villa, or sub-let it, before next winter.” 

“ I never wish to see Nice again ! ” sadly murmured 
the unhappy wife. 

“ Then, let the Consul quietly dispose of the villa for 
the remainder of vour lease,” gravely replied Baron 
Serge. “ I will give the courier every order for your 
careful transit. You must go direct by Strasburg and 
Nancy, to Paris. Once in Paris, the Ambassador will 
direct your every movement, and I — at St. Petersburg 
— will obey his orders.” 

“ It is well ! I am ready ! ” said Clara Zastrow. 

Pier troubled heart recalled the Ambassador’s father- 
ly words in the confidential letter just at hand : “ Your 

interests and those of the child are now strangely 
bound up together! Come to me — you shall be a 
guest of the Embassy until you choose your temporary 
home. My widowed cousin, the Countess Grunow, 
will receive you here, and I will go to my pied a terre 
at Fontainebleu. Remember, when you are in the 
same city with your husband it will stifle even the 
meanest gossip.” 

There was but one heart-wrench when the voyagers 
left the priest’s modest home for the station, where the 
private railway carriage waited them. 

Motherly Kazia Petroffskv clasped little Paul to her 
generous bosom. 


26 [ THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

“ You are to come to me for a six months’ visit, Ma- 
tushka !” brightly said the Princess Zastrow. “ So r 
you will not long be separated from your little bundle 
of trouble.” 

And, Serge Mohrendorf was already closeted with 
the thoughtful Foreign Secretary, Monsieur de Giers, 
on the Neva, when, at the Gare Saint Lazare, the silver- 
haired Ambassador led the young Princess to the car- 
riage where the venerable Countess Grunow awaited 
her stranger guest. 

It was two days later, when Count Ivan sat alone in 
his private cabinet with the young American, who had 
•already learned to gaze fearlessly into the old noble’s 
fatherly eyes. 

Madame Obranovitch was already established with 
the child and a Russian Sister at the Montaineblean 
house, the modest villa where Prascovie Zastrow had 
fought out her last bitter sorrows alone. 

“ Before I call in Father Anastasius, my child,” said 
the old Count, “ I must tell you that your future status, 
the childs’ interests, and all which the Emperor’s kind- 
ly aid can grant you, depends now upon vour strict in- 
cognito until such time as Prince Paul Zastrow may 
submit to reasonable control or else mend his insane 
methods of life ! Alas ! I fear only the strong hand of 
the law will ever restrain him, and, as it is beyofid my 
power to control or protect him, I must do my duty 
bv you.” 

Clara Zastrow, robed in her somber black, bowed her 
graceful head in silence. 

“ I have directed all the little belongings of the poor 
mother at Dresden to be carefully arranged and then 
sealed up for their preservation, so that one day her 
son may know of the tenderness which made his cradle 
an altar of chastened love! Before I call Anastasius 
in, look at this face ! ” 

The Count placed a picture in the Princess Zastrow’s 
hands. 

“ Beautiful — how beautiful ! ” murmured Clara, in 
rapture. 

“Fatal beauty — woman’s most dangerous dower,” 
sighed the old noble. “ It is Marie, the poor woman 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 265 

whose eyes you closed in death. But taken before the 
curse came upon her — before she paid the price of those 
hours of fatal error.” 

It was indeed the Oueen of Pearls, in all the brilliant 
beauty which shone out under the roses of Rovno. 

“ May God forgive the man who wrecked her life ! ” 
murmured the golden- haired American. 

“ Amen ! ” solemnly said the Ambassador, as he led 
the old priest into the room. 

“ We will speak English,” soberly said Mohrendorf ; 
“ for then, no one can catch a syllable! I have learned 
a lesson in the detection and discharge of that mou- 
chard Baptiste, for now I trust no one — save my own 
flesh and blood, or else our loyal old Russian hearts, 
bred up in wholesome poverty. The whole age is rot- 
ten with the vices of the idle rich — the gilded water- 
fiies of fashion’s festering pools.” 

And when the long recital was done, when Clara 
Zastrow had traced the unhappy Marie from the dark- 
ened home on the Place Michel to the narrow niche in 
the crypt at Dresden, her heart was filled with an in- 
finite pity ! 

The old priest sat with a bundle of papers clutched in 
his feeble fingers, spellbound in following, step by step, 
the downward course which had led Demetrius Kri- 
lofT’s child — the patrician Helene Souvaroff’s daughter 
— to an outcast’s grave in an alien land ! 

And Clara Zastrow blankly repeated the empty title 
which had been forfeited by the betrayal of an unguard- 
ed soul ! “ Madame la Generale Baronne Marie 

Wraxine.” 

She knew now all the sad history of Prascovie Zas- 
trow’s life — and of her own husband’s forfeited oath ! 

How base — how low in mind — this baleful Prince 
Charming ! 

How poor and thin the shield of his honor, to the 
woman who had listened to his lying tongue — the poor 
girl who had given up more than life — who had only 
ceased to cry “ Paul ! Come back to me ! ” when her 
tongue was stilled in death! 

And the child— the pledge of the mother’s love, the 


266 


•HONOH SIH dO CTI3IHS 3HX 


badge of the father’s unutterable shame — here was a sa- 
cred trust ! 

“ It is this record, my child,” gravely concluded the 
Ambassador, “ which bids me shield you from your 
husband’s duplicity — and also guard your fortune from 
his insane rapacity ! I must tell you that in the last 
month I have vainly begged him to show a single spark 
of manhood ! General Wraxine is dead — there were no 
legal proceedings after the flight of Marie ; the law pre- 
sumes the child to be born in wedlock. Poor Michel 
Wraxine — he died both insane and penniless! But, the 
child inherits his name ! The law of the Empire guards 
it ! By a strange accident, little Paul will also inherit 
the fortune which the Baroness Xenie Karovitch stole 
from the hoodwinked Marie. I have already sent a 
certified copy of the baptismal certificate on to St. Pe- 
tersburg, and Kalomine and his dissolute wife will now 
have to turn in to the Orphans’. Court all the property 
forfeited by Marie Wraxine in leaving Russia — the 
whole contents of the house on the Place Michel ! For, 
whether born in wedlock or not, the child is the heir 
of the mother ! ” 

“ Thank God ! ” murmured the woman who had 
pledged her faith to the dying mother. “ But,” she 
faltered, as the crimson flush of shame reddened her 
cheeks, “ the child is Paul Zastrow’s son ! ” 

“ True,” sadly said Ivan Mohrendorf, “ and it is for 
denying this that your husband may forfeit his rank, 
name, and standing! For I sent for him and told him 
of General Wraxine’s death — of the old soldier’s penury 
— of the misery of the dying mother and the helpless 
babe! I begged him to adopt it and so give it his name 
— the only atonement a man of honor could make! The 
Russian law allows this, but, only with your consent! ” 

“ And — what said Paul ? ” eagerly cried the young 
Princess. 

“He defied me, coarsely denied the child, and called 
the mother an adventuress ! ” slowly said Count Moh- 
rendorf. “ It is for this, that I sent Serge on to 
St. Petersburg to counteract Alexandre Kalomine’s 
schemes of sly bribery for Paul’s pardon ! It is now a 
case of the Czar and the Foreign Minister against the 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 267 

finance coterie and the corrupt Grand Duke Anatole ! ” 

“ The end of the struggle ? ” breathlessly queried 
Clara Zastrow. 

“ Paul will be proscribed — driven from reputable 
Europe- — and his name will perish from the earth ! He 
is the last of the Zastrows ! ” sadly cried the Ambassa- 
dor. “ And his father, though headlong, was a loyal 
hero; his mother, a brave-hearted angel — a woman 
whose noble eyes blessed me as she died in my arms ! ” 

There was a speaking silence. 

“ Is there no way that I can compel Paul to acknowl- 
edge his child ? ” softly whispered the young Amer- 
ican. 

“ Alas ! no. He defied me, and has even threatened 
to murder Serge ! ” said Ivan Mohrendorf. “ I have 
been obliged to have two of the secret police shadow 
him. 

“ And, if he should never consent to give the babe 
his honest name? ” cried Clara, with flashing eyes. 

“ Then, justice can not be done, unless Paul should 
die, and you then, adopt the child by law!” was the 
old man’s hopeless rejoinder. “ It is vour right 
alone ! ” 

“ Could I not buy his compliance ? ” demanded 
Clara, blushing to utter a thing so base. 

“ He is in the hands of a band of usurers, Jewish 
sharks, and the foul undercurrent of all the villains of 
Paris ! ” frankly said the Count. “ Wait — wait — he 
will soon exhaust his credit, borrowing on the chances 
of your future liberality ! Then he may be forced to 
make terms with me, but only if you are firm ! Until 
he has ruined himself he would demand at least the half 
of your fortune as the fee of his cowardly villainy ! ” 

The Princess Clara sprang to her feet. “ I am an 
American, free born and no man ? s slave ! I swear now, 
before high Heaven, that I will guard my wealth for 
this innocent child’s sake — that I will not yield ; and I 
will wait until I am free to adopt the boy myself — for 
he is now sacred to me — by the promise given to the 
mother whose eyes closed gazing upon the babe cling- 
ing to my breast ! Little Paul shall yet bear his own 


268 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 


name, and, if I am to be the Princess Zastrow, then he 
shall be my son ! ” 

“ There was that in the beautiful woman’s womanly 
face which carried away the old noble far back into his 
younger days of Life and Love ! 

Dropping on his knee, he kissed her hand as if she 
were a crowned queen ! 

“ You are a Princess by God’s holy chrism of nature’s 
nobility ! I will serve you, guard you, and protect you ! 
Listen ! There is one way left — at the very last — a last 
resort ! The Czar can issue a patent to little Paul to 
bear the name of Zastrow — on his mere Imperial pre- 
rogative. My master has offered me one or two vain 
dignities ! Of what use to hang a garland upon the 
dying tree ! He will do this for your sake — for my sake 
— for the sake of Prascovie Zastrow, the noblest 
woman whom I ever met, except yourself ! Oh ! 
Would to God that she could have folded you but once 
to her motherly heart ! ” 

The old diplomatist brushed away unbidden tears ! 

Father Anastasius had now deposited all the original 
documents of Paul’s birth, and of the Princess Clara’s 
formal reception into the Church, with the archives of 
the Embassy, and, guarded by the Countess Grunow, 
Clara Zastrow made a holy pilgrimafge to the grave of 
the woman who had died for the love of her heartless 
son. 

“ If you should see your reckless husband,” sadly 
said Count Mohrendorf. “ remember that my attache 
is with you, and you are guarded by the Swiss of the 
Embassy and the two footmen. They have their or- 
ders. For your protection, there are also two police- 
men, who never leave Prince Paul Zastrow, when he 
appears in the streets.” 

And then, the noble girl hid her tears behind a som- 
ber veil, for the idol lay shattered before her, and the 
ashes of life were thickly strewn around her desolate 
hearthstone. 

It was while returning from Fontainebleau, through 
the Bois de Boulogne, that a fatal sense of nearness 
caused the Princess Clara to lift her head as a victoria 
swept by. 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 269 

There was an exclamation, a half shout from Prince 
Paul — but only a mocking sneer from la Racowitza, 
who laughed insolently in the face of her American ri- 
val — “ la femme honnete! ” 

And then, that night, as the white stars swept over 
gay Paris, Princess Clara Zastrow, on her knees, vowed 
to be true to herself and to the motherless child who 
had nestled all those afternoon hours in her loving 
arms. 

A week after the unhappy rencontre in the Bois, 
Madame la Princesse Clara Zastrow was still a guest 
at the Imperial Russian Embassy. 

True, Justine Puprez had arrived with the luggage 
of the young millionairess, but the wary Count Moh- 
rendorf absolutely forbade the Princess Zastrow from 
entering into possession of the charming little mansion 
on the Champs Elvsees, which, by an extreme good 
fortune, had been secured from a noblewoman of rank 
ordered to Egypt, for the relief of her w T eak lungs. 

Though Ivan Mohrendorf was brave beyond all lim- 
its of caution, his daily reports from the Commissaire 
de Police caused him to accept a personal escort of two 
disguised agents de police on his own daily voyages to 
and fro, for the Ambassador delighted in his little villa 
at Fontainebleau. 

“ Le pauvre Prince Paul est entierement fou ! ” sadly 
said the French official. “ He is only surrounded now 
by usurers, swordsmen, gamblers, and escrocs! His 
unpaid I. O. U.’s have banished him from the clubs, 
and — he is in the clutches of la Racowitza ! She will 
never let him go as long as he has left a jewel or a single 
sou! ” 

“ Can she not be arrested? ” gloomily said the Am- 
bassador. 

“ Alas ! ” replied the philosophic Gaul. “ Her trade 
is a time-honored one. as old as our civilization — older 
— even a classic crime. She keeps within the law ! But 
there will soon be a tragedy ! Beware, Monsieur le 
Count : and, above all, protect this charming American, 
whose life he has clouded ! ” 

It was easy for the Ambassador to insist upon Clara 
Zastrow’s further stay at the Embassy, and, warned by 


2 70 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

the Commissaire de Police, the Count retained Baron 
Serge on the Neva, awaiting the final fall of the curtain t 

It was the only way to baffle Paul Zastrow’s mad- 
dening day-dream, his scheme to murder the Ambas- 
sador’s only heir. 

The cheap revenge of the baffled brute was to couple 
his girl-wife’s name with the absent young noble in 
foul scandal. 

And, even the base following who were eating up 
the forty thousand francs revolted at this patent vil- 
lainy. 

“ Tenez ! ” said one, “ the little American would do 
well to buy this low brute off for a few hundred thou- 
sand francs ! Only a year’s income !■” 

They knew not the spring-steel nerve of the brave 
young wife, for, secure in her own quiet mind, she 
looked above the clouds of the present to see the point- 
ing hand of the martyred Prascovie Zastrow, a moni- 
tion of Honor and Duty ! 

And, while Paul Zastrow’s blazing red star sunk 
lower in the midnight blackness of Paris, his loyal wife 
clasped to her bosom the child of the woman who had 
died for him, a living pledge, binding her soul to the 
suffering woman for whom Prascovie Zastrow had 
wrecked the last of her fortune. 

Close upon the heels of Paul Zastrow now followed 
the secret police, and the spies of the alarmed money- 
lenders haunted his footsteps ! The light-minded fol- 
lowing fell off from his side, for there was a red danger 
signal ahead now ! 

A second week had dragged away, and the young 
Princess Zastrow only heard one recurrent answer 
from the anxious Ambassador’s lips ! 

“ Wait — wait, my child ! The Czar’s Privy Council 
are making a secret investigation of this whole affair, 
from the very moment of Demetrius Kriloff’s death ! 

And Director Alexandre Kalomine has been strictly 
ordered to show the vouchers for every single rouble 
which transferred the great Maison Kriloff to a banded 
gang of usurious thieves. Remember, I am by your 
side to guard you, and the Embassy is Russian terri- 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 271 

tory ! Yon are at home now! Trust to me! Trust 
to the Czar ! ” 

It was a sparkling January afternoon when Prince 
Paul Zastrow rode his Hungarian charger — a present 
from Prince Stahremberg — at the side of Madame Ra- 
cowitza’s victoria. The Bois was almost deserted. The 
songstress, muffled in richest sables, eyed furtively the 
young Count de S&nta Marina, who now cast envious 
glances at Zastrow, across the carriage. This rich neo- 
phyte was the rising sun! The woods of the Bois de 
Boulogne were swept by a fresh, biting breeze, and the 
two horsemen with difficulty held back their chafing 
steeds. 

“ I must soon give Paul his conge, for with him ‘ les 
eaux sont basses ’ ! ” thought the singer. “ This Bra- 
zilian has millions — millions! But, it is a pity! ” Magda 
Racowitza compared the two men. 

It was Hyperion to a Satyr, but she remembered the 
famous necklace of emeralds en cabochon, which Santa 
Marina had promised her ! 

It had once shone on the swanlike neck of the Em- 
press Eugenie ! 

And so, when the Brazilian, his eyes glowering at 
Paul Zastrow, leaned toward her and hoarsely whis- 
pered : ‘‘You dine with me to-night at my apart- 
ment?” the heartless Magyar smiled faintly. “With 
the emeralds? ” she murmured. 

“Yes! ” hoarsely replied the Portuguese Midas, as 
his horse suddenly plunged and curvetted ! 

“ Hola ! ” cried the Count, as two mounted gens 
d’armes and a cavalier in plain clothes rode boldly at 
Prince Paul Zastrow, the leader waving a paper. 

An oath escaped the desperate Russian, as, sharply 
wheeling his horse, he dashed headlong into the wood, 
his horse plunging off at right angles, with the three 
strangers in a hot pursuit. 

The frightened coachman had pulled up the team, 
and the Racowitza shuddered as there was a warning 
veil and then a sickening crash ! 

“ What is it ? ” breathlessly demanded the Hunga- 
rian wanton, as Count Santa Marina rode gingerly 
back. The new lover’s face was ashen pale. 


27 2 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

“ Zastrow has broken his back, it seems ! ” excitedly 
cried the Brazilian tourist. “ He rode off a cliff, thirty 
feet high, * en plein air ’ ! They were after him to arrest 
him for the forgery of a letter of credit, and swindling 
the bank out of a hundred thousand francs ! Come 
away ! It is no place for us ! Voila un scandale ! ” 

Before the terrified woman could reply, the coach- 
man was lashing the horses frantically along, and 
half an hour later the diva safely entered the Porte de 
Neuillv. Santa Marina’s groom at once disappeared 
with his horse, and the two sybarites then drove merri- 
ly away to their ortolans and “ filet aux truffles ! ” 

“ We must know nothing! ” said the Count, and the 
complaisant Magda Racowitza answered him with her 
gleaming eyes. 

Lying on a wretched pallet, in a park guardian’s hut, 
the senseless Russian adventurer lay awaiting the ar- 
rival of the ambulance. 

The evening shadows were falling when they lifted 
the helpless form. 

A strange doctor had hurriedly administered brandy 
and an opiate ; but, callous as the crowd of strangers 
were, their hearts were touched to see the magnificent 
fabric of a peerless man lying there, a pitiful ruin, even 
in the days of his high youth. 

It was Paul Zastrow’s habitual courtesy which 
caused him to smile faintly and say : “ Thank you ! 

Go on ! I feel nothing ! ” 

He had never spoken before — since the ringing re- 
volver shot which killed his peerless charger, rang out 
through the lonely woods ! 

And so, on a door wrenched away from the hut, the 
patrician soldier, the husband of a millionairess, was 
carried away to the charity ambulance which conveyed 
him to the Maison Municipale de Sante. 

Late that night, the Ambassador conferred with the 
startled priest, for all Paris was ringing with the crime 
— the attempted arrest, and the fearful accident ! 

“ He will never stand upright again ! ” sadly said the 
physician of the Embassy, in his private report to the 
Count. 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 273 

And then, the Doctor sadly answered the unspoken 
question of Mohrendorf s eyes. 

“ Three or four months, at most ! He is paralyzed ! 
It is a hideous ending of a wasted life ! ” 

It was the finale of the hideous tragedy of a blasted 
career. 

The old Ambassador paced the cabinet in deep 
thought ! At last he spoke : 

“ Let her sleep to-night in peace ! Sorrows travel 
rapidly enough ! Thank God that the Princess Pras- 
covie did not live to see her son, a criminal, on the way 
to the galleys ! But — Death — the great Paymaster — 
Death settles all debts! It is indeed horrible! ” 

The Princess Clara Zastrow needed no monitor of 
misfortune the next morning, when the Countess 
Grunow led her into the Ambassador’s study. 

Her quick eye caught the significant group. 

The grave Ambassador was there, with the fatherly 
Anastasius, the Embassy’s physician, a distinguished- 
looking stranger, and the Commissaire de Police. 

“ Tell me all,” she said, simply. “ Is he dead? ” 

And then, she listened more in sorrow than in anger 
to the whole recital. 

“ He will never speak again ! He is a helpless 
wreck ! ” said the French physician. 

“ Take me to him — at once ! ” cried Clara Zastrow. 
“ I am his wife, and, he needs me now! ” 

As she went away for her brief preparations the 
whole circle stood in silent awe, as when an Empress 
sweeps by her line of courtiers. 

Two weeks later, Madame la Princesse Clara Zas- 
trow was quietly installed in her temporary home on 
the great avenue. 

Her youthful beauty seemed to have fled, but on her 
pale and resolute face shone out the high soul which 
still animated her girlish frame. 

Old soldier as Mohrendorf was, he dared not be pres- 
ent when Clara Zastrow entered the sick-room with 
the little Paul in her arms ! 

Countess Grunow told the old noble of the agony of 
speechless despair shining out in Paul Zastrow’s eyes 
as he gazed upon that fair woman, sobbing there with 


274 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

Marie Kriloff’s child nestling upon her stainless breast 1 

“ You women are braver than any of us, after all ! ” 
muttered the Ambassador. “ I am glad that I have 
lived to kno\y this one heroic soul ! ” 

Some potent influence had stilled the clamor of the 
whole mocking Parisian press, and there seemed to be 
a veil of the Temple now shutting out the Woman’s 
Kingdom where the Princess Zastrow reigned, from 
the mad hurly-burly of Paris ! 

The February blasts were shaking the bare branches 
of the deserted Bois when Father Anastasius took 
Clara Zastrow aside for his adieu. 

“ I must now be gone,” he said. “ There are grave 
duties calling me home, and — nothing left for me here ! 
Only to give you my blessing, and to say that I shall 
send Kazia to you for six months to relieve you of the 

care of the child, until — until ” The old man’s lip 

trembled and he turned away in silence. 

But, he was charged with a last sacred mission from 
the Ambassador. 

It was a delicate courtesy which had caused the 
Count to leave the wife alone in these last days with 
the helpless man, whose pleading eyes alone told the 
story of his infinite and unavailing regret ! 

Too late — too late! by God’s mysterious providence, 
for aught but the repentance of the soul, and that hor- 
rible silent introspection of these last months of a 
wasted life ! 

Each morning, a secretary called for orders, and one 
day in the week, the Countess Grunow took charge of 
the menage, while the Princess drove out into the crisp, 
spring air ! 

But never did her carriage pass the gateways of the 
fatal Bois de Boulogne — the avenues of gilded vice — 
the parade-ground of insolent iniquity. 

Two of the patient Russian Sisters now watched over 
the unfortunate Paul Zastrow, and the two men who 
sat ever ready in the sick-room, hardened as they were 
to suffering, often wept in Clara Zastrow’s absence, 
when the childless Russian nun held Paul Zastrow’s 
rosy babe down to kiss the pale lips of the father who 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 275 

had denied his kith and kin for the sake of wretched 
mammon ! 

This unheralded tenderness touched Count Ivan 
Mohrendorf so that even his own rugged heat melted, 
and often, in Clara’s absence, he leaned over Paul Zas- 
trow’s couch in a fatherly pity. 

But, one strange absence was noted by the Princess 
Clara. 

She knew that Serge Mohrendorf had returned to 
Paris, and yet, the loyal friend had never approached 
the house of sorrows. 

On this last day, Father Anastasius laid before the 
Princess certain papers, the receipt of which astounded 
her ! 

The first was an Imperial decree restoring the Mai- 
son Kriloff, entire, to the ownership of Marie Wrax- 
ine’s child, subject only to the repayment of a few 
hundred thousand roubles, for which a sinking fund 
of the rents would soon clear the vast property long be- 
fore little Paul’s majority. 

The personal property was already listed and depos- 
ited to the child’s credit, in the Orphans’ Court. 

Princess Clara started in surprise as the priest read 
a rescript appointing her to be the sole guardian of the 
person of the Prince Paul Zastrow, an imbecile and 
hopeless invalid. 

An order accepting the adoption of the infant Paul 
Michaelovitch Wraxine as the legal heir of the Prince 
Paul Zastrow, with a patent changing the child’s name, 
was accompanied with the legal guardianship of the 
child, duly granted to the Princess Clara Zastrow. 

And, lastly, the estates near Kief were relieved by 
order, from Alexandre Kalmonie’s mortgages, and 
their past forfeiture annulled on the future payment of 
six hundred thousand roubles, principal without inter- 
est, to be taken from the income of the lands. 

The vast estate was set aside, in the care of the courts, 
for the Princess Zastrow and her adopted son. 

Clara Zastrow fled away to her room, in happy tears, 
when the priest said : “ And now, before I go, I have 

the last solemn offices of the Church to perform ! ” 

Only the two kneeling nuns knew that, after Father 


276 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

Petroffsky had blessed the repentant man, he had held 
up before his eyes, printed in large script, the details 
of the Czar’s disposition of the interests of the helpless 
babe. 

A long, tender, silent adieu was that in which Fath- 
er Anastasius said an eternal farewell to the helpless 
man, in whose eyes shone all the light of a redeemed 
soul ! 

Much marveled the gay throng at the Gare de Saint 
Lazare to see the princely Ambassador of Russia em- 
braced the faded old priest whom he had brought, in 
stately ceremony, to the station ! 

But, even greater ceremony was shown, a week 
later, when the simple-minded Kazia Petroffsky was 
conducted by the Countess Grunow to the miniature 
palace on the Champs Elysees. 

It was the clear-headed Madame Obranovitch who 
had taken away with her Justine Duprez and the 
smooth-faced Adolph Schlitz on her return to Nice. 
She had quickly recognized their duplicity. 

It was well done, for the two cormorants soon fell 
into pleasant places ; they adroitly fastened upon the 
volatile Magda Racowitza. who had taken the young 
Brazilian away to the Riviera to pillage him at her 
leisure. 

The stripping of such a golden fool was the one 
lucky event of a lifetime! 

While the Princess Clara still wondered at Baron 
Serge Mohrendorf’s absence, she was forced to ac- 
knowledge a debt of eternal gratitude to him ; for the 
Ambassador at last told her of how his resolute 
nephew had trapped the spy Casimir Kinsky, and had 
terrified into a confession the now reputable Berlin 
banker, Matthias Weinstock! 

Weinstock, for a secret consideration, had betrayed 
Kinsky, and had, at last, established the robbery of the 
dead Corps Commander by the fugitive servant! And 
so, Paul Zastrow’s name was cleared of the meanest 
crime of pillaging his Commander! 

In far-away Siberia, Kinsky deeply regretted trust- 
ing to his Hebrew confederate; and yet, Weinstock was 
happy, for a second douceur, had obtained the evidence 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 277 

from him which freed the Maison Kriloff from the in- 
iquitous clutches of Director Alexandre Kalomine. 

It was only when the Grand Duke Anatole was sud- 
denly ordered to the Trans Caspian for five years, that 
Madame Barbe Anykoff disappeared from the Neva; 
but, returning staff officers, over their cups, told merry 
tales of a well-preserved beauty who lorded it over the 
Grand Duke’s headquarters at Samarcand. 

When the great defensive works at Rovno were at 
last, finished a quarrel of the Necker syndicate with 
the Director Alexandre Kalomine over certain undi- 
vided profits, laid bare the swindling methods which 
had induced the Baron Kalomine to suddenly resign 
his dominating position in the Imperial Bank, and to 
flee to the social caldron of Paris, and carry off with 
him the still entrancing Baroness Xenie ! 

The doors of the Winter Palace had been rigorously 
shut to her since the disgrace and practical banishment 
of the Grand Duke Anatole! 

It was with a shudder of fear that Kalomine listened 
to a veiled hint from the Russian Ambassador, when 
he reached the gay city of Lutetia. 

The fair Xenie pouted, but a quick flank march to 
Brussels anchored the guilty pair in hiding for some 
years. 

Kalomine well understood the message of Count 
Mohrendorf as to the “ unhealthy air of Paris! ” And 
so, he wisely “ moved on ” ! ^ 

When the inevitable end came, before the wood roses 
were spangling the copses of the Bois de Boulogne, 
Paul Zastrow breathed his last sigh as unexpectedly 
as the flickering lamp suddenly blazes up a moment, 
and then, comes the total eclipse of darkness! 

And yet, he, with an unspoken agony of repentance, 
vainly tried to send across the Gulf of Silence, which 
parted them, his prayer for forgiveness to the noble 
woman who gazed down upon him, and his blessing to 
the child whom he had thrust out of his heart! 

Only the two Russian nuns, who prayed beside the 
inanimate form, knew that their kindly hands had held 
up the child before him, in that last, long vigil of the 
last drowsy afternoon ; that they had shown before his 


278 THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 

e ves the slate which was the only means of communica- 
tion, and that upon it was plainly traced the words: 

“ Prince Paul Zastrow! ” 

The gentle-hearted women sobbed in delight, for 
they saw in the kindling eyes that he knew at last that 
his child would not be robbed of the fatal birthright of 
a proud name, only dishonored by himself! And in 
that chastened peace of heart, the splendid adventurer 
breathed his last, facing death without a tremor. 

“ Tout Paris ” held its breath for a moment, when 
the Russian Ambassador buried the unfortunate Paul 
Zastrow, in stately ceremony, for the dignified sorrow 
and unbroken mystery of his death had piqued all the 
curious loungers in Vanity Fair! 

The disappearance of “ ce charmante Princesse 
Americaine ” was widely deplored by those who still 
lingered to catch the golden crumbs of the young 
widow’s enormous fortune. 

It seemed, after all adverse comment, that the fortune 
was veritable, for the Baron Serge Mohrendorf, with 
the banker of the Embassy and a committee of the 
Clubs, had paid the widespread debts of the dead noble, 
to- the very last farthing ! 

And, after all, there was some regret, for the Russian 
Embassy had formally announced the rehabilitation of 
the exile’s name, but, only after his demise. 

“ C’etait un brave gaillard, celui la,” murmured the 
astonished creditors; “but, a stormy-hearted fellow!” 

And, really, only the good woman who had kept the 
secrets of that modest villa at Fontainebleau divided 
with the Ambassador the touching secret that Paul 
Zastrow slept honorably in death, beside the tomb of 
his noble-hearted mother, for the lightly chiseled name, 
“ Mertens,” had now disappeared, and the unforgotten 
woman’s marble sarcophagus bore the arms of the 
Zastrows and her own revered name. And, the mantle 
of oblivion soon descended upon the baleful memory 
of the wild-hearted Russian. 

It was five years after the Count Ivan Mohrendorf 
had retired from the splendid dignity of the Embassy 
at Paris, when he emerged from the chosen retirement 
of his vast chateau in the Urals. 


THE SHIELD OF HIS HONOR. 279 

It was when the high and mighty Emperor Nicholas 
II, was crowned in pomp the Czar of all the Russias, 
in the White City of Moscow. 

When the Grand Duke Serge gave over the keys of 
the Holy City to his Imperial nephew, when all the 
magnificent nobles of Russia were assembled to honor 
the mighty potentate, the old Princess Crayekowski, 
staggering under the weight of jewels and faded bro- 
cade, turned to a neighboring beauty, the grandchild 
of one of her schoolmates at the Catherine Institute: 

“ Who is that golden-haired beauty, my child? ” the 
aged devotee of fashion eagerly demanded. 

The envious Russian answered: 

“ This is the newly-risen star, the Baroness Mohren- 
dorf. You know, Tante, she is still the Princess Zas- 
trow in her own right, for, she had married that wild 
young Paul Zastrow who died in Paris. She is an 
American, enormously rich, and by and by, they will 
have all the old Count’s vast wealth! See how the old 
man dotes upon her! Baron Serge has just been made 
our Ambassador to Austria, and he will be a Count of 
the Empire when his uncle dies! ” 

“ There was a child! ” mused the old patrician, who 
was, even in her dotage, a walking social directory. 

“ An adopted child,” said the young beauty, as she 
gazed in envy and astonishment at Clara Mohrendorf s 
wonderful jewels. “ It is the little Prince Paul Zas- 
trow! They say that he has a palace of his own in far- 
away America, in the region where the mountains are 
all gold and silver! But, Bishop Anastasius Petroffsky 
is soon to bring him home to enter the Page School! 
The little Baron Serge is but a year old — their only 
child.” 

“ This lucky beauty has everything that heart can 
desire ! ” the old dowager sighed as she gazed on the 
noble pair when the stalwart Serge, covered with 
gleaming orders, bowed with his radiant wife before 
the pale-faced and troubled Czar! 

“ An American princess! It seems like a romance! ” 
murmured the old woman. “ She is as beautiful as a 
star! ” 


(the end) 
























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